The Legacy of Gallifrey
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: -Seq. to "Broken Faith" and "OFNH"- When an attack on his past forces the Doctor to contact his other selves, none of them could have predicted the return of a foe they prayed they would never see again... or a betrayal by someone they trusted completely
1. The Nightmare Awakes

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: This is a sequel to my earlier stories "Broken Faith" and "Old Faces, New Hopes"; reading them is ESSENTIAL if you're going to understand what's happening here...

AN 2: As this story begins, the first dozen or so chapters will alternate between the Doctor's enemies for this story being brought together to begin their plans and the Doctor's travels with Martha in the new Season Four (The first chapter looks at the main villain for this story and progresses from there); once we reach a certain point, we'll begin the main story

The Legacy of Gallifrey

People often talked of punishing someone by forcing them to experience 'a fate worse than death', but only he knew the true agony of that fate.

To not exist was bad enough, but to be given _any _degree of existence while simultaneously constantly aware of the fact that you could _never _exist unless you completed the purpose for which you had been created... to come so close to achieving that goal, only to be twice vanquished by the man who deprived you of the gift of life merely by existing himself... to taste existence before it was stripped from you by someone too weak to truly appreciate what had to be done...

It was intolerable.

It was a travesty.

The man who had condemned him to this did not _deserve _to exist; all that time spent defying him, and then he resorted to _his_ methods and _still _dared to proclaim that they were different?

It was-

_There it was_...

Despite lacking any means to do so in his current condition, he smiled at this sudden new turn of events.

As implausible as it sounded even to himself, there, in front of him- or as close to in front of him as anything could be in this situation-, was a crack in nothingness...

An impossibility inside an uncertainty, about to be penetrated by an anomaly...

What could create such a thing, he didn't know, but it didn't matter; after spending his entire existence as something that nobody believed possible, he was hardly going to complain if another such anomaly was willing to give him a chance to return to the universe that had forsaken him.

What he would accomplish once he was there... in a universe that no longer had any willing or able to contain him from pursuing his exquisite revenge for the torment he had been forced to endure...

As he dived towards the crack, straining towards the exit from his prison of non-existence that would lead him back into the real world, the thing that had once been a man couldn't help but smirk in anticipation of what was to come.

_I'm coming for you, Doctor_...


	2. Partners in Crime

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A brief look at the new take on "Partners in Crime"; hope you like it (What you don't see and isn't referenced to basically happened the same way it did before; I just figured I'd do a quick summary)

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Martha still couldn't believe it; life with the Doctor really _was _a wild ride. She'd barely finished her exams a couple of days before, and already she and the Doctor were dashing around a corporate office trying to find out exactly why aliens were going to all these lengths to help people deal with excess fat?

It might be a seemingly innocent occurrence at first glance, but if Martha had learned anything with the Doctor, it was that even benevolence needed to be checked up; Professor Richard Lazarus had certainly started out with potentially-decent intentions when he created his machine, and things had _definitely _turned out for the worst there.

"And you're _sure _this is the best way to see what's going on?" she asked, looking sceptically at the Doctor as he stood in the motorised cable they'd found at the top of the building.

"Best? No idea," the Doctor replied with a casual grin at her. "More interesting? _Definitely_."

"Is this another one of those old interests of yours?" Martha asked, smiling teasingly at the memory of when the Doctor had once admitted an old interest in driving a train when he was a child; even without the fact that his civilisation had probably developed far beyond trains centuries ago, that interest had always struck her as kind of cute.

"What?" the Doctor asked, before he smiled in understanding. "Oh, nothing like that; look, come _on_, we're going to miss it... maybe... if there's something to miss..."

"All right, I'm coming," Martha said, smiling reassuringly at him as she climbed into the cradle.

She had to admit, she wouldn't mind trying this out herself...

* * *

"Cause I thought, how do I find the Doctor?" the strange red-haired woman they'd seen earlier said as she hurried out of the door after the Doctor- Martha had hung back to make sure the cradle stayed available for their escape in case anyone came up to the roof while the Doctor was occupied-, "And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up!"

Privately, Martha wondered if her boyfriend was even listening to this as he worked away at the cradle that they'd used earlier- right now it was probably their best means of escape-, but the woman was talking at such lengths that it seemed like a waste of breath trying to interrupt her.

"So I looked everywhere," the woman continued. "You name it- UFOs, sightings, crop circles and sea monsters- I looked, I found them all, like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected! 'Cause the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day, I mean that's gotta be a hoax!"

"Actually, it wasn't; I was there," Martha said, smiling slightly at the unexpected new arrival as she held out her hand for the other woman to shake, deciding not to take offence at the surprise on the other woman's face; when you were dealing with the Doctor, some details could slip past you in the early days until you got used to it. "Hi, I'm Martha Jones; I'm with him."

"Oh... Donna Noble," the redhead replied, smiling uncertainly at the other woman as she took the offered hand. "I met him during this thing with a giant spider at my wedding-"

"Oh, you're _that _Donna?" Martha said, clicking her fingers in recollection as she recalled the Doctor's reference to that woman who'd briefly spent time with him after Rose's departure. "The one who helped him in that incident with the Racnoss, right?"

"Yeah, that's right," Donna replied, before she smiled over at the Doctor. "Been talking about me, spaceman?"

"Oh, y'know, that's just me and Martha; always talking about old friends," the Doctor said casually, before he indicated the cradle before them. "Anyway, in you get; we can talk about everything else later."

* * *

"So..." Martha said at last, smiling over at the other woman as the last of the new-born Adipose continued to drift upwards towards their ship, Miss Foster out of the equation and the potential victims of the Adiposes' 'birth' saved. "Do you still want to come along?"

"Really?" Donna said, her smile broadening as she looked at Martha.

"Really?" the Doctor said almost simultaneously, looking slightly awkwardly between the two women.

"I mean," he said, noting the slight glare on Martha's face and the hurt expression on Donna's, "it's not that I wouldn't _like _to have you along- can't have too many people in there, after all; time was I had _three _people in the TARDIS at once without counting myself and it was some of the most interesting times I'd ever had-, but, well, Martha and I... we're..."

"Doctor," Martha said, smiling over at him with a brief shake of her head, "trust me, just because you're bringing someone else on board doesn't mean I'm going to start acting all paranoid and judgemental; if Donna wants to come, why shouldn't she?"

"Hold on; 'acting all paranoid'?" Donna said, looking between the Doctor and Martha for a moment before her eyes widened in understanding. "Oh my God, are you two...?"

"Yep," Martha replied, walking over to take the Doctor's hand with a casual smile as she looked up at him, the Doctor taking her cue to lean over and give her a brief kiss on the lips before he looked back at Donna.

"But... hang on a minute..." Donna said, looking slightly incredulously between the two of them. "If he's an _alien_-"

"I'm compatible!" the Doctor said, holding up one hand to stop Donna before she could finish that sentence, sighing in frustration as she stared at him incredulously. "And _no_, I am _not _looking for anything else; if you come along, you'll just be a mate-"

"In the _friend _sense of the word," Martha reiterated before Donna could jump to the wrong conclusion; the woman seemed like she'd be excellent company, but they definitely needed to work on her tact a bit...

Still, Martha couldn't deny that having another female presence in the TARDIS should be amusing; if nothing else, having a _human _perspective on what they'd witnessed would make a nice change.

"All right..." Donna said, her eyes narrowing slightly as she pointed at the Doctor. "But I'm warning you, sunshine; one _hint _of funny business-"

"Trust me; with both of you on my case, I'd never even get to sleep before I was murdered," the Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at Donna before he raised a curious eyebrow. "Talking of which, there anything you want to get before we go?"

* * *

AN 2: Once again, hope that went down well; I don't often do this kind of chapter, but I want to cover the essential details of the episodes as quickly as possible so that we can get started on the main part of this story...


	3. Finding his Slave

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

If it had been anyone else in this position, he had little doubt that he would have been annihilated long before now; the buffeting of the Time Winds in the Vortex would have torn anything apart if he had still had a body to be damaged...

It wasn't exactly comfortable even in his current state, but he persevered; if he was going to achieve vengeance, he _had _to find what he was looking for...

Finally, after a search that seemed so long even he couldn't be sure how long he had been at it- the fact that time didn't technically exist here wasn't exactly helping him keep track of things here-, he finally found what he was looking for, floating in the further reaches of the Vortex, drifting on the outskirts as though looking for somewhere where even the Doctor had never been.

Whether they were doing it to avoid his foe or simply out of a desire to see something truly new, he didn't know and it didn't matter; all that mattered was that _she _was _there_.

Tensing himself, he dived towards his discovery, penetrating and enveloping it before anything else could react, smiling as his target became aware of his presence just when it was too late for her to do anything about it...

He wasn't sure what was more thrilling, really; the moment he found her, or the moment when she saw him and 'remembered' who he was.

_You_?! she screamed, 'staring'- for lack of a better description of what she was doing in the current environment- at him in horror. _But-_

_He killed me_? He replied, scorn transparent in his voice as he looked at the woman. _I am beyond such concepts, my dear _pet_; I have become something that not even my creators dreamed I could be_.

_You are an _abomination _to everything in_- she began.

_Don't act like you're anything different, _tool, he spat, cutting her off as he neatly penetrated whatever petty walls and defences she was already frantically trying to establish, so secure in her safety in this place that she had lowered her barriers to better enjoy the experiences that only she could ever fully understand. _You were never anything but a means to an end, no matter what my dear Doctor tried to pretend otherwise. You've always been nothing but a puppet; the only thing this changed is the scale of the people interested in pulling your strings_.

_NO_! She screamed desperately as he burrowed into her, spreading through her and eradicating all that she was, locking her away from herself-

He froze.

It _couldn't _be...

He grinned.

Just when he thought that his discovery couldn't be more perfect...

Not only would she provide him with the means to contact those he sought to perfect his new plan, but she would even allow him to regain some semblance of what he had lost in his last confrontation with his enemy.

It wouldn't be the same as what he _really _wanted, of course- only one would ever be exactly what he was looking for-, but it would _definitely _hurt his enemy, and that was what really mattered right now.

Once that was done, all he needed to do was find the old rifts that he was looking for- they might have been 'relocated' since the Time War, but you couldn't destroy things like _those_-, and then the fun could _really _begin...


	4. The Fires of Pompeii

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: The aftermath of "The Fires of Pompeii", with bonus reference to the Seventh Doctor audio "The Fires of Vulcan"; hope you like it

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Staring at the Doctor as he stood over the console, his shoulders tense as he stared at the central column, Martha, not for the first time, couldn't help but wish- even if it was only a brief, guilty part of her- that they'd never started travelling in the TARDIS again after she'd completed her exams; at least then the man she loved wouldn't be going through... _this_...

She knew that his desire to travel through time was an essential part of who the Doctor was, and she would never _ask _him to change that for her, but this last adventure in Pompeii had definitely been hard for him; with the Master's death and the recent discovery that Leela had survived, the potential lure of being able to change history had probably never seemed more tempting to the Doctor...

"Martha?" the Doctor's voice said, breaking her chain of thought as he turned to look at her, his expression a blank one that gave no hint about whatever topic was on his mind. "Something wrong?"

"Just..." Martha began, before she sighed and gave up any thought of coming up with some alternative explanation. "I was worried about you."

"Me?" the Doctor replied, smiling at her in the manner that Martha had come to think of as his 'pain smile' (The smile he wore when he was covering up some deeper pain or loss). "I'm fine, really; I'm..."

For a moment, he simply stared at Martha, looking sceptically back at him, finally sighing in resignation.

"I'm not fine," he said simply. "Pompeii has... never been easy for me; I spent two lifetimes thinking that I was going to be stuck there once...."

"What?" Martha asked, looking at him in surprise.

"A police box was found at an excavation of Pompeii in 1979 and I found out about it five lives back," the Doctor explained with a brief shrug. "I landed there in my seventh life- the short one with the umbrella, you know-, but, with a little... incentive... from Mel- my current companion-, we worked out a way around it; we hid in the ship while the lava was settling, let it cool down around us, and then I just took a quick hop forward by nineteen hundred years without moving an inch in space so that we could leave the TARDIS in the hollow cavity that had formed around it-"

"Making it _look _like it had been there the whole time when you'd skipped over the intervening centuries..." Martha said, nodding in understanding with a slight smile.

"Yep," the Doctor replied, shrugging briefly before he turned back to studying the TARDIS console. "Anyway, if that's all-"

"It's not," Martha cut in, prompting the Doctor to once again turn back and look at her.

"All that stuff about changing history..." Martha began, awkwardly recalling a previous conversation they'd had in their flat while the Doctor was talking about his time with Rose; it wasn't exactly a comfortable topic, but if she was going to be in a time machine for a prolonged period, finding out what she was or wasn't capable of when visiting the past seemed like something she should know. "I mean, I get that it's a bad idea- definitely wouldn't want to meet those 'Reaper' things you told me about-, but, if you did it... right- you know, changed something when you knew you could get away with changing it without attracting the Reapers-, have you ever actually... gone somewhere _just _to change it?"

For a moment the Doctor simply stood in silence, contemplation dominating his face as he stared reflectively at nothing in particular, before he spoke at last.

"Once or twice," he said at last. "I mean, I was _sent _somewhere to make a change once- even if I didn't do it in the end-, and another time I visited a couple of my recent companions back before they'd met me so that I could make a couple of little changes to their lives- I caught a balloon that Alistair lost when he was a kid and helped inspire Sam's choice of career after she left me, although I only did the second because of a whole complicated... _thing _involving how she ended up joining me that this isn't the place to talk about-, but the only time I went somewhere to make a complete change to something just because I _could_..."

He paused for a moment, swallowing as though trying to regain his strength, before he finished. "The only time I went somewhere for the sole purpose of changing history- not to find out the answer to some historical mystery, not to stop someone else's interference with history and put it back to normal, not on some mission for the Time Lords; I was just there because I _wanted _to stop things turning out the way they did-, I ended up turning a minor fight that ended up causing only a few deaths into a nuclear conflict that decimated an entire planet."

Martha's eyes widened in shock.

"Oh God..." she whispered; she could barely even imagine death _on _that scale, never mind being the indirect _cause _of it...

"It was all erased afterwards- a couple of higher-dimensional beings owed me a favour or two after I stopped this deranged supercomputer gaining control of the universe-, but it still showed me why I _need _to have limits," the Doctor said, shaking his head slightly as he reflected back on those darker days towards the end of his sixth life. "Even if I want to change everything... to 'make people better', like the Master said... sometimes... even if you want to... you just _can't _change history."

"Is that because you _shouldn't_... or because you _can't_?" Martha asked uncertainly.

"Sometimes both," the Doctor said grimly. "I was present at the destruction of Ockara in 2204- it was the homeworld of the Selachians, an aquatic race that turned all their attention to developing weapons of war after they were hunted by visiting aliens who didn't realise that their 'prey' was sentient until it was too late- in my second body, and... well, at the time it might have partly been because I had a friend down on the planet as well, but I _did _try to save them... I tried to convince the man who triggered the destruction to hold back... I tried to convince the Selachians to withdraw... I tried to save them any way I could think of that might allow them to live _without _changing history- I thought that if I could convince them to just hide away on their planet that might cut back on their impact on future history-, but, no matter what I did..."

He sighed at the memory. "In the end, the only thing I was able to change was that a woman who committed suicide out of guilt over what she'd unleashed by creating the weapon that destroyed Ockara died six months early saving her planet from her own creation."

"Oh," Martha said, nodding slightly out of a lack of anything else to do; it wasn't like there was a pre-prepared response to learning that he man who loved had failed to stop the destruction of a planet even _before _he was forced to destroy his own.

"As much as what Donna suggested can be tempting, I can't just... chop and change whenever I feel like it," the Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he reflected on the memory of those dark days around Ockara, desperate to save Zoe and Jamie while trying to preserve time without causing too much death. "There has to be a line... there has to be some things that I _won't _do... some things I _won't _change... or, in the end, I'm no better than the Master, forcing my view on the universe whenever it doesn't fit with what I want to see."

For a moment Martha thought that he was going to say something else, but then he shook his head as though deciding against it, Martha only catching a muttered reference to something not being the same before he looked back at her. "As Barbara once said, change history too much and it messes everything up; I can stop Earth being conquered by the Master or enslaved by the Daleks, but if I start going back to kill Hitler or stop the _Titanic _sinking I give myself more power than anyone should have..."

"Uh... Barbara?" Martha asked uncertainly, breaking his train of thought to focus on the more personal detail; thinking of the Doctor _killing _anyone wasn't something she felt entirely comfortable with. "As in... Professor Chesterton's wife?"

"Oh... yeah, that was Barbara; used to teach history before I took her on a wild ride across everywhere and anywhere," the Doctor replied, smiling slightly at the memory of those early, more innocent days, back when he could still believe that he had no greater responsibility than to keep Susan safe before he found himself on a Dalek-occupied Earth or face-to-face with the man who had nearly totally killed the entire Didonian race simply to save himself...

He might have left Gallifrey to save himself from trouble there, but he'd had no idea what he'd find himself facing once he'd left that planet...

"Anyway," he said at last, looking regretfully back at Martha, "I might be able to make some changes, but... as I told Barbara back then... there are times when you have to know when _not _to do something; there's a fine line between protecting people and ruling people, and I can't... I _won't_... give myself that power..."

"Because it becomes too easy to stop accepting what you can't change," Martha finished for him.

"Yep," the Doctor said with a brief nod, the grim expression on his face making it clear how seriously he took the current topic. "It might start out just wanting to save people, but... as Alistair once said to me... If you could keep everything the same all the time... if you could make sure you'd never lose anybody... how could you really appreciate the moments that you _did _have with them?"

"Moments such as...?" Martha asked, walking up to him with a slight smile on her face, grateful for the opening he'd given her to shift the current conversation to a more pleasurable topic than the serious matter she'd previously brought up.

"Such as...?" the Doctor began, trailing off as he turned to look curiously at her before he realised what she meant.

"Oh, a few possibilities spring to mind..." Martha replied, smiling slightly as she reached up to pull the Doctor's lips down to meet her own, thoughts of changing history the furthest thing from her mind as she kissed one of the most unique men in _all _of history...

* * *

AN 2: For those who want to know, the incidents the Doctor refers to where he changed history occurred in the novels "Interference: Book Two- Hour of the Geek" (The Eighth Doctor attempted to affect his companion Samantha Jones's personal development because she'd been created by his enemy to serve as a distracting, ordinary companion for him and he wanted to give her a possibility of a life after leaving him), "The Shadows of Avalon" (When he travelled back to change a traumatic childhood event of the Brigadier's when he lost a balloon when he was eight) and "The Quantum Archangel" (The Sixth Doctor's interference in a civil war on the planet Maradnias escalated the minor war into a nuclear explosion; after he helped defeat a plot by the Master to control the Lux Aeterna- the underlying quantum fabric of the universe- to destroy the higher-dimensional beings, they erased both the Doctor's visit and the original war he'd tried to stop as thanks for his assistance)


	5. The First Partner

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

In so many ways, this 'doorway' that he had now discovered had been the easier one to access; getting to what lay on the other side of it might always be a delicate matter if you wished to avoid meeting the fate of the man whose assistance he had come here to recruit- to say nothing of the dangers if you didn't take the appropriate precautions, but once you knew what constituted a door to this place it was fairly simply to get into it.

Smiling as he travelled through the portal- his new slave easily modifying things to allow her to pass through the barrier without the expected 'side-effects' of such a transference-, he didn't have long to wait until he sensed the presence of the one he'd come here to find, the masked man appearing before him as he left his transport.

"Who are you?" the figure before him asked in his traditional booming voice (The man barely resisted the urge to wince; this man's power might make his involvement in the plan essential, but that didn't mean the volume was something he appreciated).

"My name is... not important at this juncture," the man replied with a casual smirk (He actually rather enjoyed having a voice again; it was so much easier than focusing your thoughts onto others, even if it demonstrated more power than this). "What _is _relevant at this point, however, is what I can offer you..."

"Which is?" the other replied.

"Vengeance upon he who has thrice sought to condemn you to this torment of solitude," the man replied, smiled slightly at the man in question.

The figure blinked.

"You would grant me a chance at this?" he said, staring critically at the figure in front of him. "In case you are forgetting-"

"The necessary precautions have been... taken into account, I assure you," the man replied, smiling at the man before him. "I have just as much interest in seeing the Doctor dealt with as you do, but I am equally aware of the power you possess here; I would not come to you unless I was certain we could assist you."

"'We'?" his contact repeated.

"I have a couple of... other contacts... I need to make before I can take action against the Doctor," the man replied. "Your power would make my plan easier, but we need to work together to focus it properly outside this realm-"

"And _why _should I assist you?" the other asked, folding his arms as he glared at the man before him. "I have fought the Doctor before and accomplished nothing save a renewed exile to this realm; what makes your proposal so different from then?"

"Because," the man replied, smiling slightly as he looked at the being- it was debatable if he could be considered a 'man' in his current state, even if that was unfairly prejudiced against him given his own prior state of existence-, "if we succeed, then every reason for him to _want _to stop you will no longer apply."

_And I will at last prove myself superior to him_...

He didn't even need to see the gleam that appeared where this being before him had once had eyes to know that he had won his contact over; another step towards his victory over the Doctor had been completed...


	6. Planet of the Ood

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: The conclusion of "Planet of the Ood"- with the TARDIS crew preparing to leave the Oodsphere, with a VERY interesting new prophecy made as the Doctor, Martha and Donna depart...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"The message has gone out," the Doctor said, staring out at the Ood before him, Martha and Donna with a broad smile on his face, his arm around his... girlfriend, he supposed was the best term, even if he couldn't help but feel that Martha deserved to be called something deeper... as the woman he was already coming to consider a sister of sorts- he just felt too young in this body to consider Donna a daughter like he'd done in the past; like his fifth and eighth selves, he felt more comfortable in a 'brother' role compared to the 'father' of some of his other bodies- stood slightly behind him.

"That song resonated across the galaxies," he continued, a warm glow in his hearts as he looked at the Ood now standing around him in a half-circle; he might have failed them in the fight against the Beast, but he'd come through for them now. "Everyone heard it; everyone knows. The rockets are bringing them back. The Ood are coming home."

_Home_...

He might not have one of his own any more, but he'd managed to restore the home of an entire species and give them back their freedom; by anyone's standards, they'd done a _very _good job here today...

"We thank you, Doctor, Donna and Martha, friends of Ood-kind," Ood Sigma said, almost seeming to smile at them despite the lack of a mouth for him to use to smile at them in the first place. "And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you."

"Oh, we've... sort of got our own song," the Doctor said, slightly squeezing Martha's shoulder as he smiled awkwardly at the Ood; he wasn't used to people offering to let him stick around on a long-term basis.

"I think your song will end soon," Ood Sigma said.

The Doctor blinked.

"Pardon?" he asked, uncomfortable with the implications of that statement; something _ending _wasn't exactly something he was comfortable thinking about...

"Every song must end," Ood Sigma replied, before his gaze shifted to look at Martha as she stood alongside the Doctor. "But the song is changing as the darkness comes."

"Darkness?" the Doctor repeated in confusion.

"The darkness of the times that are not will come to you soon," Ood Sigma replied simply. "If all of you do not stand together, your pain will never end."

"Uh... right..." the Doctor said, nodding uncertainly at Ood Sigma's words even as he tried to ignore the slight spike of fear he felt at the Ood's last comment.

_All of you_...

He had a couple of ideas about what that might mean, and he wasn't sure he liked them; every time he was in _that _kind of situation, something bad _always _happened...

"Well..." he said, trying to divert the subject as he turned to look at Donna, remembering her earlier words when they'd first learned what humanity was doing to the Ood, "how about you? Still want to go home?"

"No," Donna replied, shaking her head with a smile as she looked at the Ood before them. "Definitely not."

"Good," the Doctor replied, smiling gratefully back at her before he turned back to the Ood. "Then we'll be off."

"Take this song with you," Ood Sigma replied, the song of freedom that had initially drawn the Doctor to the caged Ood seemingly increasing in 'volume' as he spoke, he and the Ood around them raising their arms, palm upwards so that their fingertips were touching, linking them in a circle.

"We will," the Doctor confirmed.

"Always," Martha added.

"Hard not to," Donna put in with her own smile.

"And know this, Doctor, Donna, Martha," Ood Sigma continued. "You will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor, Donna and Martha, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever."

There were some planets where that might have been a curse, but standing here, looking out at the beauty of the snow-covered planet that had been the Ood's home, the Doctor couldn't help but briefly be reminded of the snow-capped mountains back on Gallifrey, where he'd spent so much time running around the outskirts of Lungbarrow as a child, fleeing his cousins to explore the next ridge and see what was there for himself even if others told him there was nothing there _to _see...

But as the Doctor, Martha and Donna returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor setting the ship to dematerialise once more, the Doctor couldn't shake the feeling that there was still something important in the Ood's 'prophecy'- if that was what it was rather than a mere philosophical statement about everything ending eventually- that he was missing...


	7. Another Recruit

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

In many ways, he supposed that he should have expected this part of the plan to be the most difficult.

Even with the memory of having actually _experienced _this transition himself- albeit from long ago in a time that was becoming increasingly hard for him to remember; his own actions had made his timeline far more complicated than it had been, and it hadn't exactly been straightforward around this point to start with-, coupled with the information gained from his slave's knowledge and his ally's own experience, what they were attempting right now was something that had only been done once, and even that had only been when the dimension they were accessing had been created in the first place.

Creating a doorway when you were making the area you were trying to access was one thing; creating the doorway _after _the location had already been created was complicated enough even _before _you factored in the unique nature of the area they were trying to access...

"You're sure this will work?" he asked, looking over uncertainly at his ally; as much as he might 'trust' his colleague in this endeavour- as much as he trusted anyone, which was as much trust as the man before him was likely to get-, what they were attempting _was _delicate work.

"I am certain of it as I can be," the other man replied, staring with obvious frustration at the current plan's coordinator from underneath the mask that he still wore. "However, I still fail to understand why you require _him_; surely I-"

"Only your _combined_ power and knowledge can ensure that this works out; in case you've forgotten, we _are _having to start developing what we need from scratch," the coordinator replied. "You only achieved your original goal by working together; you can surely put past grievances aside to do this now."

"Acknowledging that and _liking _it are not the same thing..." the figure growled, his cold gaze fixed on the other man. "And be assured, if this effort should fail, you _will _be dealt with..."

"Then it's a good thing it won't, isn't it?" the first man replied as he continued to study the read-outs of the dimensional portal they had created, making a mental note to keep an eye on his current partner; he might be under instructions to contain his 'reserve' of the powers he'd possessed in his old body until he needed them, but that didn't mean he wouldn't lose his temper and deplete his energy ahead of schedule...

Then the sensors they had connected up to the portal began to beep, and the two men acted at once, the first man halting the portal's search while the other man reached out with his remaining powers- the sensation of the energy he controlled being harnessed was very distinctive to those with the right senses- to pull their target through the 'door' they had created. For a moment the coordinator thought that their efforts had failed when sensors showed no trace of anything coming through the entrance they'd created, but that theory was put to rest when the man who had just come through the portal moved at last.

"Uh..." the man muttered, shaking his head as he stared around himself, his face possessing a rough, weathered look to it as though he had endured varying degrees of wind or sandstorms over the course of his life, even as the enhanced senses of those watching him could tell that what he had endured ran deeper than that. "What... what happened... where am I...?"

"Home, my lord," the man replied, smiling slightly as the new arrival looked up in their direction, as though he'd only just realised they were there.

"Who...?" he asked blearily, before his eyes fell on the man in the mask and widened in recognition. "_YOU_?"

"I assure you, this reunion was as unplanned for you as it is for me," the masked man replied grimly. "However, our... associate... here has a plan that he requires our assistance with; specifically, a plan that involves us achieving our revenge against the one who led the effort against our... restoration."

"Really?" the new arrival asked, turning to look at the other figure with a piercing stare. "And you would do this... why?"

"The Doctor destroyed my plans and threatened my existence," the group coordinator replied simply. "I seek nothing less than to undermine everything he stands for and show him that he is wrong."

"I... see..." the man who had just come through the portal said, nodding thoughtfully at the man in front of him. "In that case... you have my attention."


	8. The Sontaran Stratagem & The Poison Sky

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: One of my more detailed 'alternate' episodes- although I'm still only focusing on the _really _relevant parts as the essential episode plot was unchanged-, given that this one includes not only a couple of scenes showing the Doctor's assessment of Martha's clone, but also a special guest appearance by the Doctor's oldest friend...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As soon as he'd walked out of the TARDIS, the Doctor couldn't help but smile broadly at the sight of the man standing before him; even dressed in tweed with far more weight than he'd carried back in the days when the Doctor had been all frills and velvet, Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart still carried that same dignified air of authority and confidence that had won the dedication, admiration and respect of so many of his soldiers over their long years together in UNIT.

"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart..." the Doctor said, walking up to his old friend with a broad smile on his face. "Still helping to protect the Earth, eh?"

"I try to stay retired, but they keep on drawing me back in; UNIT central command even called me back from Peru specifically to get in touch with you for this, Doctor," the Brigadier replied, his warm smile at the Doctor somehow more effective for the extra weight he'd put on since his retirement as he walked forward, the two old friends exchanging brief but firm handshakes before the Brigadier looked over the Time Lord's shoulder. "Ah, and I see you're still travelling with Miss Jones, and... Good Lord, Miss Noble?"

"What?" Donna said, she and Martha having left the TARDIS just behind the Doctor. "Sorry; do I know you?"

"Evidently not yet..." the Brigadier said with a slightly reflective smile before he held out a hand to the red-haired woman. "Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Miss Noble; good to meet you."

"Hold on a minute; didn't you get a knighthood recently?" the Doctor asked, looking at his friend with a slight smile. "I recall dropping in for the ceremony back when I was in my tamer phase with Evelyn a few bodies back..."

"I try not to use the title too much, Doctor; it gives off an impression that I hardly feel I deserve," the Brigadier replied with a shrug. "I merely did what anyone would have done in my position..."

"Oh, come _on_; I can't think of many people who'd be willing to go along with some of my plans back then," the Doctor said, his smile broadening as he looked at his old friend. "You shot a _demon _for me just over a decade ago, after all; that's not something _everyone _does, you know!"

"Simply doing my job, Doctor," the Brigadier said, shrugging nonchalantly even as he smiled slightly at his old friend.

"You shot a _demon_?" Donna said, staring incredulously at him.

"It's a long story, Miss Noble, and regrettably we don't have the time for this right now," the Brigadier said, as he indicated the factory behind him. "The current UNIT commander is Colonel Mace; he's waiting for us in there to brief you on the situation."

"Ah," the Doctor said, pausing briefly as he looked at his old friend. "Just one thing; you _do _have the authority to countermand him, right?"

"If I feel the situation truly merits it, yes," the Brigadier replied.

"Good," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "If I'm getting into anything UNIT-related, I'd feel better having you in my corner than anyone else."

"The same here, Doctor," the Brigadier replied, nodding with a brief smile at his friend as they walked towards the factory, Donna and Martha close behind them. "The new blood do a decent job, but they're still a bit more 'shoot-first' than I'd like, even if the likes of Benton, Palmer and Osgood do what they can to keep them honest..."

As the UNIT soldiers began to emerge from the factory, the Doctor pushed any thoughts of concerns about UNIT's current operating methods out of his mind; any situation that merited UNIT calling him in was generally something to take seriously.

* * *

As he hurried back into the ATMOS factory with Ross, the Doctor couldn't help but wonder how he always managed to arrive in these situations just before the planned attack escalated rather than any other time in its conception.

Just once, he wished that he or his allies could find evidence of alien threats _before _they were at the point of having all their resources in place and were only waiting for the right moment to attack; barely hours after his arrival, and they already had Sontarans launching a poison gas attack on a global scale thanks to an overly elaborate satellite navigation system...

If he hadn't been quicker, Donna's grandfather would be dead; as it was, there were probably at least a few thousand people who were almost certainly dead from close-range exposure to this gas, and that was discounting whatever the toxins in the smoke would do in large quantities...

"Doctor?" the Brigadier said as the Time Lord hurried into the factory, the elderly soldier looking curiously up at his former scientific advisor, Ross close behind him. "Where's Miss Noble?"

"Waiting in the TARDIS; safest place right now," the Doctor said briefly as he paused beside his old friend, Ross automatically standing stiffly at attention in the Brigadier's presence. "Where's Martha?"

"Helping us analyse the readings we've acquired of the gas in the main facility; Mace was hoping that time with you would give her an insight into something that the rest of his team might miss," the Brigadier said, waving a brief hand at Ross to prompt him to relax. "I assume you have a better idea what we're dealing with?"

"Sontarans led by a General Staal," the Doctor said.

"Sontarans..." the Brigadier said, pausing for a moment in reflection before his eyes widened. "You mean that short race of clone warriors you met during that kidnapping case when you first started working with Miss Smith?"

"Yep; they're the ones," the Doctor confirmed grimly (As touching as it was to remember those old days back at UNIT, back when he'd actually had the closest thing he'd ever had to a home since leaving Gallifrey with Susan- you couldn't consider a junkyard a 'home' even if he'd stayed there for a good few months-, this wasn't the time to get lost in memories). "We've got to talk to Colonel Mace; can't have him doing anything until we're ready..."

With that, the Doctor turned around once again and hurried towards the control room, the Brigadier and Ross close behind him as he walked into the main control room.

"Right then," the Doctor said, taking in the group around him- including Martha in a white lab coat; he really should see about having her wear that more often, it really suited her-, "here I am, good. Whatever you do, Colonel Mace, do _not_ engage the Sontarans in battle; there is nothing they like better than a war. Just leave this to me."

"And what are you going to do?" Mace asked, looking pointedly back at the Time Lord as he studied the large screen displaying the spread of the as-yet-unidentified gas.

"I've got the TARDIS," the Doctor replied with a shrug. "I'm going to get on board their ship. Come on!" he added, waving Martha and the Brigadier over as he headed for the door; if he was going to the heart of this latest crisis, he wanted people he trusted alongside him.

It was when Martha passed him by without even a cursory 'hello' that he began to feel suspicious, but when her current scent- a scent that he was almost hyper-attuned to after the time they'd spent together over the last few months- reached his nose, the explanation instantly hit him.

_Clone_...

He should have expected it from the Sontarans at some point, really- cloning was the whole reason they even _existed_, after all-; he'd just never anticipated that their process was capable of coping with human stock after spending centuries duplicating nothing but Sontarans.

On the bright side, given what he knew of their technology, he doubted that the real Martha was dead- particularly not with that slight 'tang' (for lack of a better term) in the air of psychic energy leading back to the clone that suggested a mental link with the original Martha to access her memories via remote; it was faint, but his mental senses were _definitely _detecting something there-, which meant that all he had to do was keep quiet about what he knew until the time came to get Martha back...

As soon as he arrived in the alley where he'd left the TARDIS, his theory had all the proof he needed; the TARDIS was gone, most likely beamed away by the Sontarans when the clone had sent them a warning about what he was about to do.

"But... where's the TARDIS?" the clone asked, with what could have been effective confusion if he hadn't known the truth.

"Taste that, in the air," the Doctor said, pointing upwards with one hand and rubbing his fingers together. "That sort of metal tang... Teleport exchange."

"The Sontarans, I assume?" the Brigadier asked.

"Yep," the Doctor said, nodding grimly at his friend (He was definitely grateful that Alistair's presence here reminded him of the last time he'd been in this situation; even if she wasn't here to see it, he'd have hated to say something rude about being stuck on one planet at a time like this after all the time he'd spent working on his social skills while interacting with Martha's friends). "They've taken it, and now I'm... _stuck_ all over again; how rubbish is that? Sorry, no offence, but come on!"

"Your exile once again, isn't it, Doctor?" the Brigadier said, smiling slightly at his old friend as he reflected on the circumstances under which they'd formed their real friendship after their first casual meetings in the Doctor's second body.

"So what do we do?" Martha's clone asked, looking earnestly at him.

"Well..." the Doctor said uncertainly, trying to sound like he was trying to figure out what he already knew. "I mean, it's shielded; they could never detect it..."

He trailed off as he looked at the clone (He couldn't think of her as Martha; Kode had been one thing, but this clone having been created by the Sontarans for their current campaign automatically defined any response or action she might make in this situation, whereas Kode had been given relatively free reign to develop as he wished after his creation).

"What?" the clone asked, her tone a brisk one that the real Martha had never used with him even when she'd been frustrated with his actions as John Smith.

"I'm just wondering, have you phoned your family?" the Doctor asked, looking inquiringly at the clone.

"No, what for?" 'Martha' asked, confirming the Doctor's assessment of the clone's mental state; she knew the fine details of Martha's life, but with Sontaran technology limiting her 'programming' she had no _emotional _connection to the events...

"The gas," the Doctor said by way of explanation. "Tell them to stay inside."

"Course I will, yeah, but what about Donna?" the clone asked. "I mean, where is she?"

"Oh, she's gone home; couldn't handle things here like we can," the Doctor said, shooting a brief glance at the Brigadier to be quiet (He knew Alistair too well to think that his old friend wouldn't realise something was wrong with what he was saying, so he'd just have to make sure that he didn't say anything until there was a good chance to talk to him in private). "Anyway, _allons-y_!"

With that, he turned around and hurried back into the UNIT base, his oldest surviving friend and the clone of the woman he loved behind him as he returned to the room that he'd only left a couple of minutes ago.

* * *

"Change of plan!" the Doctor announced as he walked back into the room, shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto the top of a nearby cabinet, Martha Jones hurrying around to study the computer readouts as the Brigadier walked in behind them, smiling slightly at the sight of his old scientific advisor (He sometimes wondered if he shouldn't have tried to come up with a better title for the Doctor; these days orders from the Doctor in a crisis tended to amount to the same thing as the order from a general) once again in his element.

"Good to have you fighting alongside us, Doctor, Sir Alistair-" Colonel Mace began.

"Trust me, Colonel; the Doctor is here to _help_, but that is not the same as saying that he is here to _fight_," the Brigadier said, looking pointedly at Mace before he turned to address the rest of the room, his voice ringing with the authority of command even after so long out of the military. "Do we know what this gas is yet?"

"We're working on it," Doctor Jones put in as she took the earphones from one of the soldiers to get a more thorough update.

"It's harmful, but not lethal until it reaches 80% density," one of the other soldiers said, this one a young blonde-haired woman with short hair in a captain's uniform sitting at the screen almost directly in front of Mace. "We're having the first reports of deaths from the centre of Tokyo City."

"And you are?" the Brigadier asked, his voice low as he leant over slightly to address the other woman.

"Captain Marion Price, sir," the woman said, standing up and saluting him.

"No need for that, Captain Price," the Brigadier replied, unable to stop himself smiling slightly at her enthusiasm.

"Jodrell Bank's traced a signal, Doctor, coming from five thousand miles above the Earth," Mace put in, the main computer screen in the room changing to show the Earth with a red dot highlighted some distance away from the planet's surface. "We're guessing that's what triggered the cars."

"The Sontaran ship..." the Doctor said grimly, walking back around to stand beside Mace as he stared at the sight before him.

"NATO has gone to Defcon One-" Mace began.

"Tell them to stop it," the Brigadier said.

"What?" Mace said, looking at the Brigadier in surprise. "Sir Alistair, this is-"

"Pointless; nuclear missiles won't even scratch that ship," the Doctor interjected. "Open up a communication link; we need to talk with the Sontarans."

"You're not authorised to behalf of the Earth-" Mace began.

"No problem," the Doctor said, as he pulled out the sonic screwdriver. "I'm not talking; Alistair is."

Before the Brigadier could voice his own thoughts on that, his old friend had aimed the sonic screwdriver at a panel on the console in front of Mace.

"Calling the Sontaran Command Ship under Jurisdiction Two of the Intergalactic Rules of Engagement," the Doctor said, his tone authoritative as he began to transmit the message to his enemies, "this is the Doctor and Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, speaking on Earth's behalf."

As he finished speaking, the middle screen in front of them changed from showing Earth to showing a figure with a large, potato-like head dressed in what looked like blue armour, illuminated by a purple light.

"_Doctor_," the Sontaran- the Brigadier assumed it was a Sontaran, anyway; it certainly matched the descriptions Miss Smith and Doctor Sullivan had given him- on the screen said, looking back at them with a blank expression that it was hard to read accurately. "_Breathing your last_?"

"My God, they're like trolls," Mace muttered.

"Yeah, loving the diplomacy, thanks," the Doctor said, waving a hand slightly to the Brigadier to prompt him to start talking.

"Speaking as one soldier to another, General Staal," the Brigadier said, stepping forward slightly to better address the alien on the screen before him, calling on all his old authority as UNIT's first commander, "I have this to say to you; you have no concept of the honour of warfare."

"_How dare you_!" Staal practically spat in response (The Brigadier thought he heard Mace say something, but ignored it; this was more important right now). "_You _dare_ impugn my honour, primitive_?"

"Naturally I dare," the Brigadier replied coolly. "You have attacked an entire planet, many of them non-combatants, with a weapon that allows you to sit comfortably out of danger while your opponents are in no position to fight back. Where is the alleged Sontaran honour...?"

His voice trailed off as he spoke, his eyes widening thoughtfully as he looked at the screen, another explanation for the Sontarans' actions occurring to him. "Or are you planning something else _beyond _this attack on Earth?"

"You see, _that _is what I always liked about you," the Doctor said, leaning over to whisper at him with a proud smile. "Always able to think outside the box, even if I didn't always act like you did at the time."

His compliments paid, the Doctor turned his attention back to the Sontarans before them. "Gas attacks aren't normal Sontaran warfare, so the question becomes, what's the _reason _for the change of tactics? What are you lot up to?"

"_A __general would be unwise to reveal his strategy to the opposing forces_-" Staal began with a rapid tone that the Brigadier recognised as a man trying to conceal the truth by giving the person he was speaking to everything else.

"Aaah," the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair with a slight smile, "the war's not going so well, then? Losing, are we?"

"_Such __a suggestion is _impossible!" Staal interrupted, glaring at the Doctor.

"What war would that be again, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked, glancing over at his friend; the Doctor _had _told him that the Sontarans were engaged in constant warfare with another race when he'd first filled UNIT in on his encounter with them, but it had been so long since he'd read the report...

"The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans," the Doctor replied, his expression becoming colder as he glared at Staal on the screen. "It's been raging, far out in the stars for 50,000 years. 50,000 years of bloodshed, and for what?"

"_For victory_," Staal said simply, before he raised a rod in his right hand- whether it was a weapon or served some ceremonial purpose, the Brigadier didn't know- and struck his other hand with it as he began to chant, the other Sontarans swiftly joining him.

"Give me a break..." the Doctor muttered, rolling his eyes and pulling out the sonic screwdriver, aiming at the screen for a few seconds before it shifted to show a cartoon of what seemed to be a boy watching a magic show.

"Doctor," the Brigadier said, turning to look at his old friend with a slight smile of familiar exasperation before Mace could say anything himself, "as much I found their battle-cry frustrating, we _do _need to maintain some kind of professional appearance if this is going to get us anywhere..."

"Right-o," the Doctor said, nodding back at the Brigadier in understanding as he aimed the screwdriver at the screen again. "Sorry about that, force of habit; too used to being solo these days... Finished?" he asked with a casual smirk as the screen began to show the Sontarans once again.

"_You __will not be so quick to ridicule when you'll see our prize_," Staal said, walking off to stand in front of something on his left. "_Behold_!"

As Staal waved the rod he still held in his hand, the screen shifted, revealing that Staal was standing in front of the familiar police box, a couple of small black devices with red lights on them visible on the doors; evidently they had served as 'beacons' to help the Sontarans beam the ship up despite the Doctor's comments about it being shielded.

"_We are the first Sontarans in history to capture a TARDIS_!" Staal said, looking smugly- as smugly as a creature that resembled a potato could look, anyway- at the screen.

"Well," the Doctor said, his voice low as he stared at his ship, now separated from him by several thousand miles of vacuum, "as prizes go, that's... _noble_.As they say in Latin, _Donna_ nobis pacem."

For a moment, the Brigadier wondered what he meant by that last comment, but decided not to waste time asking about it; if he knew his friend, there was definitely some ulterior plan behind his unusual choice of words.

"Did you never wonder about its design?" the Doctor continued, raising one finger to his ear and wiggling it back and forth as he looked at the Sontaran general. "It's a phone box. It contains a phone. A telephonic device for communication. Sort of symbolic. Like if only we could communicate, you and I..."

"_All you have communicated is your distress, Doctor, now that we have your TARDIS_," Staal countered bluntly, clearly unaware of the Doctor's increasingly-evident attempts to pass on a message (Now that the Brigadier thought about it, he must be talking to Miss Nible inside the ship; what he didn't know yet was why the Doctor had lied to Doctor Jones about their fellow companion's current location...).

"Big mistake, though," the Doctor continued, leaning back in his chair as he spoke. "Showing it to me..."

He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and waved it in one hand while smiling at the screen. "'Cause I've got a remote control..."

"_Cease transmission_!" Staal yelled, the screen shutting down almost instantly.

"Oh, well," the Doctor said, standing up nonchalantly.

"Did you do it?" the Brigadier asked.

"Do what?" Mace said, looking between the two men in confusion.

"We'll just have to wait and see," the Doctor said, looking over at his old friend with a brief, apologetic stare before he stood up and walked out of the control room, leaving the Brigadier to shrug at Mace with a resigned smile.

* * *

As he hurried down towards the basement followed by Martha's clone, the Doctor could only hope that his guess about Sontaran technology was accurate; if they could maintain this kind of link at long-range, Martha could be on the Sontaran ship with Donna and they were only storming the facility to try and capture him...

Still, if this was as complicated as the situation became, he supposed he should count himself lucky; at least so far the death toll had been relatively limited. The gas they were dealing with was a problem, admittedly, but with the Doctor and the Brigadier advising caution, Mace had been convinced not to attempt a nuclear launch against the Sontaran ship, and attempts by UNIT to counter the Sontaran invasion had been delayed on the Brigadier's orders until the UNIT troops were armed with non-copper bullets that could fire despite the Sontarans' Cordolaine field. With Alistair keeping an eye on the situation up on the surface after the _Valiant _had cleared the gas away from the immediate area, the UNIT troops were keeping the Sontarans fairly well-occupied, giving the Doctor the chance to investigate his theory about the reason for the Sontarans' interest in the factory.

He wasn't certain what benefit would be gained from restoring Martha to normal, but if it meant that the woman he loved was no longer being used by the Sontarans as a 'double agent' inside UNIT that he now evidently didn't need, he'd worry about the long-term implications later.

"No Sontarans down here; they can't resist a battle," the Doctor muttered as he scanned the basement's white corridors, the sonic screwdriver held out in front of him. "Here we go..."

Following the screwdriver's signal to a nearby door, the Doctor quickly overrode the keypad with the screwdriver, walking through the green-lit door into the predominately purple room, his eyes automatically falling upon Martha's unconscious form, lying on a leather 'bench' with blue lights in a frame around her, a black metal circlet on her head with wires coming out of it and extending into the chair, dressed in a white 'hospital gown'.

"Oh, Martha..." the Doctor said, his voice low as he ran over to check her pulse, allowing himself a brief moment of relief as he confirmed that she was still alive. "I'm so sorry..."

The sound of a gun being aimed at him prompted him to glance back, only to turn back to Martha when he only saw her clone standing there.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" he asked briefly.

"Wish you carried a gun now?" the clone asked, once again proving his assessment correct; she might know _what _he did, but she had no understanding of _why _he did it.

"Not at all," he said, continuing to study Martha; nothing seemed to be connected up to the chair beyond the circlet, and even that seemed to be a more basic scanner rather than anything particularly invasive..."

"You'd never even have been able to begin to launch those nuclear missiles," the clone said mockingly. "I've been ready to stop the nuclear launch all this time-"

"Doing _exactly_ what I wanted," the Doctor said with a shrug as he turned around to face her. "Alistair was right; launching missiles wouldn't do anything but get the Sontarans mad. You've been a potential triple agent, kept in play _just _in case I needed you!"

"When did you know?" the clone asked, showing her first sign of real emotion as she looked at him in confusion, the Doctor walking around her with a nonchalant smile.

"What, you?" he asked. "Oh, right from the start. Reduced iris contraction, slight thinning of the hair follicles on the left temple, general lack of emotional awareness- never even _once _mentioned that you missed me, not calling your family; you're all too professional when you're produced via Sontaran techniques, it takes serious trauma to get through that-, and, frankly," he continued, as he walked around to lean over the chair where the real Martha lay, "you _smell_. You might as well have worn a T-shirt saying 'clone'... although, maybe not in front of Captain Jack."

The clone showed no reaction to the Doctor's comments, and he began to prepare himself; what he was about to do wasn't pleasant, but every word he spoke to her made it increasingly clear that he had to do it.

"You remember him, don't you?" the Doctor asked, carefully watching the clone for any sign of emotion; the more she appeared emotionless, the easier it would be- not that this would _ever _be easy- for him to do this. "'Cause you've got all her memories. That's why the Sontarans had to protect her, to keep you inside UNIT. Martha Jones is keeping you alive."

With that, he yanked the circlet from Martha's head, the young doctor regaining consciousness with a scream just as her clone fall to the ground, clutching her chest in agony, the Doctor quickly kicking the now-dropped gun out of reach of any party before he reached over to hug Martha.

"It's all right," he whispered reassuringly to her. "It's all right, I'm here, I'm here... I've got you... you're safe..."

"There was this _thing_, Doctor," Martha began, her arms reaching up to shakily hold onto him. "This alien, with this... _head_..."

Further efforts from the Doctor's attempts to comfort Martha were cut short when his mobile- Martha had insisted he get his own during their time on Earth- began to ring, forcing him to leave her as he took the phone out of his pocket.

"Blimey, I'm busy..." he groaned, before he turned the phone on and held it to his ear. "Got it?"

"_Yes_," Donna's voice replied on the other end, her usual snapping tones a welcome sound to the Doctor's ears; at least he knew that she was still alive despite being stuck on a Sontaran ship. "_Now hurry up_!"

"Take off the covering," the Doctor said urgently, looking apologetically at Martha as he spoke- he could only hope that she would understand that he had no choice; he would never leave her to cope with the sight of her own dead body unless he had something urgent to do elsewhere-, "and then flick up all the blue switches inside- like a fusebox, really-; that _should _get the teleport working again..."

* * *

As he stood outside the TARDIS once again, the Brigadier allowed himself a brief, wistful smile as he recalled the old days at UNIT, when this blue box had been such a staple of daily life in the organisation that people had been surprised when the Doctor _wasn't _working at repairing it some day or another, to say nothing of the apparent regularity with which aliens had come to Earth- or appeared on it; the Doctor had never effectively determined where the Master had acquired the parasite he'd used for that 'Keller Machine' thing-; the invasions might be more public these days, but there was still something to be said for the more subtle methods employed by the likes of the Nestene Consciousness or the Zygons...

Walking into the ship, the Brigadier smiled at the sight of the Doctor casually chatting with Doctor Jones and Miss Noble around the console, each of them past the brief tension of the confrontation in Rattigan's school. They probably would have had a great deal more to argue about if the Doctor had gone through with his plan to try and give the Sontarans a chance- he'd actually been willing to beam himself up and trigger the atmospheric ignition himself-, but after the Brigadier had knocked him out before he could activate the teleport, Rattigan had managed to use the time available to program a slight 'delayed action' into that atmospheric convertor that allowed them to turn it on while it was still on Earth and then send it up to the Sontaran ship. The Doctor hadn't exactly been happy about it when he'd regained consciousness, of course- it might not have been the same as the Silurian incident, but death would never be something the Doctor was comfortable with-, but from the looks of things, Miss Noble and Doctor Jones had managed to get him calmed down about it all once more.

"Alistair!" the Doctor said, turning to look at him with a pleased smile, all sign of their previous argument evidently forgotten. "How's things out there?"

"Oh, as well as ever, Doctor," the Brigadier replied with a smile. "Rattigan has agreed to assist our tech support in dismantling all hostile elements associated with the ATMOS systems in exchange for a lighter sentence, and he's gone on record in helping establish a cover story by saying that he is shutting down his school after an experiment involving ATMOS and an atmospheric regeneration system nearly went fatally wrong; he's already accepted an offer to work for UNIT after he's released in order to contribute something while staying out of the public eye."

"Good for him," Martha said, smiling briefly at the old soldier.

"Quite," the Brigadier said, as he turned to look at the young woman. "And... how are you, Doctor Jones?"

"I'm fine," Martha replied, nodding reassuringly at him. "Been a bit rough, but I'm fine."

"Good," the Brigadier said, noting from her relaxed stance that she was telling the truth; he supposed that seeing yourself die when you _knew _it wasn't you wouldn't exactly be as difficult as shooting people when you thought they might be your friends...

"So, anyway..." Donna asked, indicating the room around them with a smile as she looked at the old soldier, "that aside, you interested in coming along with us? We're not exactly short of space here..."

"As appealing as the idea is, Miss Noble, I'm a bit too old for this sort of thing any more," the Brigadier said with an apologetic shrug as he looked over at the Doctor. "I think I reached my limit for physical activity like this during that mess with Hitler-"

"Hitler?" Donna and Martha said simultaneously, looking between the Doctor and the Brigadier in surprise.

"You met Hitler?" Donna asked.

"Well, actually the main problem during that particular meeting was Hitler's son-" the Doctor began.

"His _what_?" Martha said, looking between the two men in shock. "Hitler had a _son_?"

"I assure you, the son in question has been deceased for several years now, Doctor Jones; he made us take him-" the Brigadier began, only for the conversation to suddenly be cut off when the TARDIS doors slammed shut, the ship shaking wildly as the central column began to move, forcing the Brigadier to grab a nearby pillar to steady himself while Donna and Martha were thrown against the railings, the Doctor only just managing to hold on to the console.

"What?" he said, looking around him in confusion. "_What_?"

"Doctor, if this is some kind of joke...!" the Brigadier yelled over at him.

"No, no, no, I didn't touch anything!" the Doctor protested, waving his hand at his old friend as he studied the TARDIS scanner in confusion. "We're in flight, but it's not me!"

"Where are we going?" Donna asked, she and Martha staggering forward to grab hold of the console (The Brigadier didn't trust his hip to keep him steady in these conditions; it was best to wait where he was until the ship stabilised).

"I don't know; it's out of control!" the Doctor protested desperately, sparks flying from the console as he tried to regain some kind of control. "Nothing's responding-!"

He was momentarily interrupted as the latest explosion forced him to dive to the floor, glancing at something in a jar with suddenly-widened eyes. "But wherever we're going, my old hand's very excited about it!"

"Your _hand_?" the Brigadier repeated incredulously; he didn't recall the Doctor ever telling him anything about being able to regrow lost limbs before...

"Hold on; that's _yours_?" Donna yelled. "I thought that was just some freaky alien thing!"

"It got cut off; he grew another one!" Martha yelled over by way of explanation as the shaking continued.

"You _what_?" the Brigadier yelled, looking at his friend incredulously. "You never told us you could do that-!"

"It only happens under specific circumstances that never came up- it's like regeneration; it's something I don't like to think about because I only do it when things have gone _really _wrong-, and this _really _isn't the time-!" the Doctor began as he got back to his feet, only for another rebellious explosion from the TARDIS to send the Time Lord flying backwards into the chair next to the console while Martha and Donna hit the railing once more, the Brigadier only just managing to maintain his footing as the TARDIS shook.

For a moment, the four passengers simply looked at each other in confusion, and then the Doctor ran towards the door, opening the latch and stepping out into the world where the TARDIS itself had apparently chosen to bring them.

* * *

AN 2: For those wanting to know, the Brigadier's reflections on the difficulties of shooting people you know refers to the novel "Dancing the Code", where the Brigadier was forced to shoot duplicates of the Third Doctor and Jo Grant when they began to feed UNIT troops to giant insects that the Doctor had been breeding in his lab- the difficulty being that at the time the Brigadier wasn't sure if his friends had been brainwashed or duplicated, and hence thought that he might have killed the real Doctor and Jo-, and the incident with Hitler's son refers to the novel "The Shadow in the Glass", where the Sixth Doctor and the Brigadier discovered that Hitler's wife Eva Braun was smuggled out of Berlin and her death faked so that she could give birth to Adolf Hitler Junior.

In any case, hope you enjoyed this chapter; the next 'episode rewrite' is going to be another long one, as the Brigadier comes face-to-face with General Cobb while helping his oldest friend cope with the idea of fatherhood all over again...


	9. The Coming of Evil

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Another short one, and in this case the new recruit to the villains' team won't technically appear, but you'll understand my reasons when you learn who the Doctor's up against in this story

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As he looked at his allies, the man who had brought them together allowed himself a brief smirk at the thought of the individual he was about to recruit.

His other two allies would definitely make their upcoming assault extremely personal for the Doctor, but they had still only encountered the Time Lord at irregular intervals; they hated the Doctor, but they lacked the truly _personal _experience that could only be gained by regular conflict with him.

Their team's fourth prospective member, on the other hand...

Even without confronting the Doctor directly, his actions had defined the Doctor's life for centuries; what better person to participate in this latest plan to undermine the Time Lord than this man?

"You are... certain... that this... individual... you wish to recruit is necessary?" his latest ally said, looking sceptically at the plan's coordinator as they stood in his ship. "I have read your files on him; he has demonstrated a... capacity for betrayal..."

"Only when those who have attempted to secure his services have tried to make him do what _they _want," the leader replied, smiling slightly as he studied the two men before him, unable to stop the slight thrill he felt at having won the allegiance of these men after what they had almost done to the Doctor. "In this case, we simply seek to give him the chance to do something that he wants to do _already_; the fact that we gain something ourselves is incidental if we can make him see the benefits to both sides when this plan succeeds. He might be arrogant, but he is not stupid enough to turn on those who are going to help him get what he wants."

"But do _we _need _him_, is the question?" the team's original 'recruit' asked, looking pointedly at the man who had brought them together. "I would remind you that we have prior experience in creating what is required-"

"We don't have the time to assemble what we need from scratch before the Doctor possibly becomes aware of us; this man is the _only _one who can provide us with the technology we need now that our most obvious source is gone," the man said grimly. "I assure you, I find the concept of working with that... _thing_... as distasteful as you do, but we require his technology if we are ever going to even hope to conceal our activities from the Doctor before we are ready to strike."

For a moment, the two men simply looked silently at the third, clearly lost in contemplation of what their organiser had said, before they both nodded resolutely.

"All right," the second man said, the authority that had served him so well in life clearly coming through as he looked at the man before him. "So... how do we contact him? From what I understand of... recent events... he's not exactly going to be someone we can just drop in on..."

"Oh, that shouldn't be a problem," their leader said, smiling slightly as he indicated an ever-increasing rise in temporal energy in the immediate vicinity of his ship. "Actually, the man we're looking for is already on his way; all we need to do is wait for him, and he shall appear..."

He had to admit, there were times when the information he acquired as a result of his 'unique' heritage could be a _definite _advantage in his line of work (Even if the advantage was sometimes limited by the very nature of his adversary when it came to the two of them facing each other directly); how else would he know about this man's survival before even the Doctor would learn about it?


	10. The Doctor's Daughter

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: This chapter begins IMMEDIATELY after my "Sontaran Stratagem"/"Poison Sky" rewrite, just after the TARDIS has landed; hope you like it (And I acknowledge that it's a longer rewrite than most, but I couldn't help it; putting the Brigadier in this kind of position opened up _far _more possibilities than I'd anticipated...

AN 2: To clarify in advance, I won't be looking at Martha's role in this episode; it didn't change much from what it was originally, and the Brigadier's role was _far _more interesting for me anyway (Although I still cut out a couple of scenes like Donna naming Jenny as they didn't deviate significantly from the original take on things and didn't add that much to the overall plot))

AN 3: Some _slight _hints here about what's coming up in later chapters, but it's nothing you won't see coming when I reach the end of the 'rewrite' portion of this story

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Taking in their new surroundings, the Brigadier had to admit that he wasn't particularly impressed; the ship's impromptu independent flight appeared to have led them to nothing more remarkable than an apparently underground tunnel, filled with various pieces of junk and old equipment that gave the impression that they had stopped being used for their original purposes long ago, stacked up in a basic wall formation at various points in the corridor.

"Do you recognise this place, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked, looking curiously over at his friend as he followed the Time Lord out of the ship, followed by Donna and Martha.

"Not immediately..." the Doctor muttered in confusion. "Why would the TARDIS bring us here...?"

"I love this bit," Martha whispered over to the Brigadier, unable to stop herself smiling slightly as she leaned over to talk to the Doctor's old friend.

"I admit, I never entirely got the hang of it myself," the Brigadier said with a slightly apologetic shrug as he looked back at Martha. "Then again, I didn't exactly travel with him that much; he spent the first three years that he worked for me just trying to get the ship working again, and then..."

Further conversation was cut off at the sound of footsteps, the four of them spinning around to see three young men standing before them, automatic weapons aimed at them and dressed in dark green clothing, their skin slightly dirty with the accumulated grim that came from spending the day in a dirty location without any specific evidence of what had caused it.

"Don't move, stay where you are!" one of the soldiers said. "Drop your weapons!"

"We're not armed!" the Doctor said, holding up his arms and rapidly flexing his wrists as he looked at them, Martha, Donna and the Brigadier also raising their arms (The Brigadier was briefly grateful for the gun in his cane; it wasn't a perfect weapon by any means, and it would only give him a single shot, but at least it meant that he could defend himself without the Doctor lying right now given the relatively limited nature of the weapon). "Look, no weapons; never any weapons! We're safe."

"Look at their hands," another soldier said. "They're clean."

"All right, process them," the first soldier said, indicating the Doctor. "Him first."

As soon as the order had been given, the other two soldiers handed the guns they were carrying to the first man and ran towards the Doctor, grabbing him by both arms.

"Oi, oi!" the Doctor said, looking indignantly between them as they practically carried him over to what looked like a pair of large blue doors with black 'ribbing' connected via thick blue wires to a large tube thing that looked like a cement mixer with a narrower hole. "What's wrong with clean hands?"

"Leave him alone!" Martha yelled.

"What's going on?" Donna asked in confusion.

"He's done _nothing _to deserve this; we are-!" the Brigadier began, outraged at this blatant disregard for any kind of rule of warfare- they weren't even bothered about what the four of them were doing there, they seemed to have already made up their minds- before the Doctor's right arm was practically shoved into the tube, the Time Lord wincing as the machine made a sound like air whistling through it before gears apparently began to move.

"Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure-" the Doctor began, his voice being cut off as he screamed in sudden pain.

"What are you doing to him?" the Brigadier asked, trying to exert some authority as he glared at the young soldier before him.

"Everyone gets processed," the other man replied, his gun still aimed at the three TARDIS passengers.

"It's taken a tissue sample..." the Doctor muttered, before he suddenly began to yell in pain before the machine began to quieten down.

"And extrapolated it..." he mused reflectively. "Some kind of accelerator?"

Before he could think any further on this issue, the machine had released him with a sudden hiss, leaving the Time Lord staggering back as Martha and Donna hurried over to him, the Brigadier close behind them as the Doctor stared wide-eyed at the machine.

"Are you all right?" Martha asked, looking at his had to see only a scar, shaped like a Y on its side, stretching across his wrist, the Doctor for once ignoring Martha as he stared at the machine in front of him.

"What on Earth...?" he said, seemingly uncertain about what he was looking at. "That's just..."

Before he could speculate further, the doors of the machine in front of them opened, smoke emerging from the doors as a young woman, dressed in a tight dark green T-shirt and equally tight black trousers, her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, stepped out of the machine, looking curiously at her surroundings.

"Arm yourself," the first soldier said simply, handing her a gun before walking off as though nothing remarkable had happened (The more he saw of this 'war'- whatever it was about-, the less the Brigadier liked it; that man didn't even seem to _care _about this woman).

"Doctor," he said, turning to look in confusion at his friend, "who is this woman?"

"Well... she came from me," the Doctor said, an expression of shock on the Time Lord's face as the woman casually armed the gun she now held in her hands with a professional ease that even the Brigadier's disgust with this situation couldn't stop him admiring. "She's... she's my daughter."

The Brigadier blinked.

_Daughter_?

He wasn't sure if the fact that Martha Jones was just as shocked at this news as he was made it better or worse...

"Hello, Dad," the young woman said as she apparently finished setting up her gun, before she walked over to join the other soldiers as they took up position behind one of the 'walls' seen earlier.

"You primed to take orders, ready to fight?" the first soldier asked.

"Instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols, sir," the Doctor's apparent daughter replied, smiling briefly at the other man as she spoke. "Generation 5000 soldier primed and in peak physical health. Oh, I'm ready."

With that, she aimed her gun over the top of the wall and waited, the other soldier simply smiling briefly at her before he and his men did the same.

"Hold on; she's your _daughter_?" Martha asked, looking at the Doctor with a pointed stare that the Brigadier thought had a faint trace of jealousy about it. "You mean... you _have _been here before? You and-"

"_No_," the Doctor said, looking resolutely back at Martha as he spoke, his eyes briefly shifting away from his daughter to look at the woman he loved. "Martha, if you've ever believed anything I told you, believe this; I don't know what planet this is, and Rose and I- or anyone else I might have had a child with who'd have _those _features- _never_... did _that_..."

"OK, so what _is _she, then?" Donna asked, clearly trying to draw the conversation to a less awkward topic. "If she's your daughter, who's the mother?"

"Technically, me," the Doctor said, shrugging awkwardly at the sudden stares he received from the others (Although the Brigadier noted that Martha Jones's initial jealousy had faded with that last comment, even if she was still evidently confused). "She was created by progenation; reproduction from a single organism, means one parent is biological mother and father."

He shrugged slightly even as he scanned the area around him with a silent urgency, noting one of the other soldiers attaching and programming some kind of yellow device on a nearby wall. "You take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement, and they grow... very quickly, apparently."

"Something's coming!" the blonde girl said, a sound from the tunnel drawing the group's attention back to the other end, just in time to see a group of four creatures that looked like humans with fish heads and some kind of green 'tube' in their mouths coming towards them carrying guns and shooting at them.

"It's the Hath!" the first soldier said, the group immediately beginning to return fire.

"_Get down_!" the blonde yelled, apparently unconcerned about the fact that the four travellers were already doing that. One soldier fell as the race that the Brigadier presumed were the Hath advanced, but the others didn't even appear to notice, simply continuing to fire away at their apparent opponents.

"We have to blow the tunnel!" the first soldier said, looking back at the Doctor as he hurried over to examine the fallen soldier. "Get the detonator!"

"I'm not detonating anything!" the Doctor yelled, his attention focused on the fallen man before a muffled scream prompted the Doctor, the Brigadier and Donna to look around and see Martha being dragged away by one of the Hath back towards their end of the tunnel.

Before the Doctor could do anything himself- the Brigadier didn't even have time to try and raise his cane; getting caught in a pointless fight was one thing, but they had to protect each other if they were ever going to get home-, the blonde had kicked the nearest Hath back and grabbed the detonator that the fallen soldier had dropped.

"Blow that thing!" the first soldier yelled.

"Martha!" the Doctor yelled, his eyes wide in horror as he ran towards the blonde. "No, _don't_-!"

Before he could reach her, the young girl had hit the detonator control, leaving them with no other option but to run and hide behind the junk barricades until the explosion had ceased and the worst of the shaking seemed to have stopped.

As the Doctor, the Brigadier and Donna walked out from behind the barricades to study the results of the explosion, the Brigadier knew that things had just become even more complicated; not only was there now a large pile of debris between them and Martha Jones, but they didn't even know if she was _alive _on the other side of it...

"You've sealed off the tunnels," the Doctor practically growled as he turned to look at the young woman. "Why did you do that?"

"They were trying to kill us!" the woman replied.

"But they've got _Martha_!" the Doctor yelled in frustration.

"Collateral damage," the blonde replied simply, indicating the Brigadier and Donna. "At least you've still got them; he lost both his men. I'd say you came out-"

"War is _not _about achieving victory by sustaining the least amount of casualties of the two involved sides, young woman," the Brigadier said, turning to walk forwards slightly to stand in front of the woman with a pointed glare on his face (A part of him briefly noted that she looked more like the Doctor when he'd worn cricket gear and that strange stick of celery than the Doctor as he was at the moment, but decided not to mention it; it was possible that the machine had grown her from whatever remained of that Doctor in _this _Doctor's body or something like that, and there was a reason he'd hired the Doctor for the scientific side of things, after all). "If you start to consider your soldiers as nothing but numbers, than you might as well _allow _the enemy to kill you, because you have already almost certainly lost whatever you were fighting for in the first place-"

"_Enough_!" the first- and only remaining- soldier said, his gun suddenly aimed at the Brigadier. "You three don't make any _sense_; no guns, no marks, no _real _fight in you-"

"Because we aren't interested in simply shooting away at someone without getting a handle on why they're shooting at us in the first place?" Donna asked, glaring over at the man in frustration. "Our _friend _is down there-!"

"And until I've taken you to General Cobb, you're going _nowhere_," the soldier said simply, indicating down the tunnel with his gun. "Now move."

"Alistair," the Doctor said, glancing over at his friend as they began to walk, "have I ever apologised for that time I said that I thought the term 'military intelligence' was a contradiction in terms back when I was all frills and velvet?"

"Not _specifically_, no," the Brigadier replied, ignoring the slightly surprised look Donna shot the Doctor at that comment, clearly wondering when the Doctor would have dressed like that (Not that the Brigadier could blame her; the concept of _this _Doctor dressing like the one he'd worked with back in the seventies was a _very _strange mental image...).

"Well, I'd like to apologise for that now; at least you actually listenedto me back then," the Doctor said, shaking his head slightly wistfully at the memory as they walked. "You might have done your own thing anyway sometimes, but you still _listened_ before you did things..."

"You're his superior officer?" the girl asked, slowing her pace slightly to better address the Brigadier.

"'Superior officer'?" the Brigadier repeated, smiling slightly at the thought before he looked at the blonde with a more authoritative stare to ensure she understood what he was about to tell her. "If there's one thing you should know about your father, young woman, it's that he defies such categorisation; I might have been his commander on paper, but that was quite frankly as far as it went, and I was sometimes lucky to even get _that_..."

"Oh," the girl said, looking between the two men with a slightly confused expression, as though she wasn't sure how she should respond to that explanation.

"Anyway, enough about the military thing," Donna said, looking at the girl with a slightly uncertain smile. "I'm Donna; what's your name?"

* * *

"So, where are we?" the Doctor asked, trying to steer the conversation to a less personally difficult topic- debating the fine points of fatherhood with Donna and the newly-named 'Jenny' definitely hadn't been comfortable- as he addressed the soldier who was currently leading them. "What planet is this?"

"Messaline," the young man replied as they began to climb up a small stairway. "Well, what's left of it."

The Doctor was about to ask for further information, but further conversation was cut off as the group took in the sight of the room before them, pods like the one that had created Jenny on both walls as soldiers milled around the room, a balcony above them draped with two large cloths while soldiers stood on the edge, evidently look-outs of some kind...

"But... this is a _theatre_," Donna said, her gaze flicking in confusion between the boxes containing what the Brigadier assumed were either weapons or ammunition and the obvious stage at the other end of the hall from the balcony.

"Maybe they're preparing for the annual talent competition," the Doctor said, exchanging a brief, grim smile with the Brigadier at the memories of some of the shows from their UNIT days as the soldier who'd guided them in walked off to talk to someone.

"It's like a town, or a city, underground..." Donna said, shaking her head in confusion at the events around them, ranging from fires being used to cook to people shrugging on uniforms. "But why?"

Further speculation was cut off by the arrival of an older man with a grey beard and a weathered expression, who walked over to look pointedly at them.

"General Cobb, I presume?" the Brigadier asked, the Doctor almost automatically stepping back slightly to allow the Brigadier to step forward and take charge himself (If it hadn't been for the extra weight he was carrying since then and the Doctor's new appearance, the Brigadier could have almost felt like he was back in command, the Doctor deferring to his military experience at a difficult juncture).

"Found in the Western tunnels, I'm told, with no marks," Cobb said, his tone demonstrating a grim resignation of a man who did his job simply out of a lack of anything else to do. "There was an outbreak of pacifism in the Eastern Zone, three generations back, before we lost contact; is that where you came from?"

"Essentially, yes," the Brigadier said, trying to conceal his apprehension at the description of pacifism as an 'outbreak', like it was some kind of disease, simultaneously deciding to conceal his rank; the last thing he wanted was someone trying to forcibly recruit him into this fight in the belief that he was already a part of it. "I am Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, and these are my friends, Donna Noble, and the Doctor."

"And I'm Jenny," Jenny added brightly.

"Don't think you can infect us with your peacemaking," Cobb continued, ignoring Jenny's attempt to introduce herself and further lowering the Brigadier's already far-from-high opinion of him. "We're committed to the fight, to the very end."

"We have no intention of challenging anything," the Brigadier said, hoping that an appeal to practicality would be enough to give them time to take a better assessment of the situation. "All we need is to find our friend-"

"That's not possible," Cobb said, looking at the Brigadier as though he was wondering how someone so ignorant of the situation was still around. "All movement is regulated. We're at war."

"Yeah, we noticed; with the Hath," the Doctor said, stepping forward slightly. "But, tell me- 'cause we got a bit out of circulation, Eastern zone and all that-, who exactly are the Hath?"

For a moment Cobb simply looked at them, and then he turned around and began to walk back into the hall, the TARDIS crew following him as he began to speak.

"Back at the dawn of this planet," Cobb said- with what the Brigadier felt was an unnecessary element of melodrama-, "these ancient halls were carved from the earth. Our ancestors dreamt of a new beginning, a colony where human and Hath could work and live together."

"So what happened?" the Doctor asked.

"The dream died," Cobb said, a simplicity in the statement that suggested he would accept no contradiction to that view. "Broken, along with Hath promises. They wanted it all for themselves. But those early pioneers, they fought back. They used the machines to produce soldiers instead of colonists, and began this battle for survival."

"There's nothing but earth outside," Donna put in, drawing the group's attention to where she stood studying one of the windows (She must have walked off while the Doctor and the Brigadier were listening to Cobb's story). "Why's that? Why build everything underground?"

"The surface is too dangerous," the first soldier replied.

"Well then, why build windows in the first place?" Donna asked, indicating a metal plate underneath the window stamped with some kind of number that the Brigadier couldn't quite make out. "And what does this mean?"

"The rites and symbols of our ancestors," Cobb replied, a strangely uncomfortable sense of dignity in his tone. "The meanings... lost in time."

"How long's this war gone on for?" the Doctor asked.

"Longer than anyone can remember," Cobb replied grimly. "Countless generations marked only by the dead."

"Excuse me?" the Brigadier said, looking incredulously at Cobb; Sontarans were one thing, but the idea of humans having fought for so long that the origin of their war was lost was something he almost couldn't believe. "You have been fighting for _that _long-"

"Because we must," Jenny said, a simple conviction in her voice that she was saying the right thing that it almost made the Brigadier feel sick; the first member of the Doctor's actual family that he'd ever met, and she had been created programmed to be nothing more than cannon fodder. "It's our inheritance, it's all we know; how to fight, and how to die."

"And for _what_?" the Brigadier asked, indicating the earth-covered window with a frustrated wave of his hand, trying not to look at the evident pain on his friend's face; for a man who'd dedicated his lives to stopping violence, his daughter being 'generated' to be a soldier had to be hard. "For a planet where you had to build _underground _because the surface was too dangerous? Do you even know how much territory you actually _control _right now?"

"Actually, that's not a problem," the Doctor said, the pain that had been on his face earlier now pushed aside in favour of curiosity as he walked over to study what looked like a holographic map of the tunnels and assorted chambers, pulling out a pair of black-rimmed glasses as he stared at the map. "If I'm right- and, in all fairness, I usually am; just ask Alistair-, this thing shows the entire city, including the Hath zones?"

"Yes... but why is that relevant?" Cobb asked.

"Well, it'll help us find Martha," the Doctor smiled (He was evidently also thinking of the TARDIS, but the Brigadier doubted that any of them should mention the ship right now; alerting the military in this kind of war to the existence of a time machine couldn't be a good thing).

"We've more important things to do," the young soldier said, his straightforward dismissal of Martha almost terrifying in its simplicity. "The Progenation Machines are powered down for the night shift, but soon as they're active, we could breed a whole platoon from you three-"

Anything else he might have said was cut off when the Brigadier turned to glare at the soldier, the stare that he had perfected from confrontations with the Master himself- the man might have been a psychopath but he could deliver an intimidating stare like nobody the Brigadier had ever met- directed at the soldier before him.

"If you even think for a _moment _that we will permit you to create _soldiers _from our DNA, young man, you are tragically mistaken," the Brigadier spat. "We will not permit you to create _cannon fodder _for your _pointless _war-!"

"Hey!" Jenny said, stepping forward to stare indignantly at the Brigadier. "I have a body, I have a mind, I have independent thought-"

"You said yourself that all you knew was how to fight and die; that doesn't sound like independent thinking to _me_," the Brigadier practically spat at her, his distaste for her apparently total inability to live up to her father's legacy coming through with the knowledge that the Doctor could never say this himself.

"She _is _more than that," Cobb said, glaring at the Brigadier as he stepped forward slightly with an approving nod at Jenny. "Soldiers like her are how we'll find the Source."

"The Source?" the Doctor repeated, looking at Cobb with an eager smile that only the Brigadier knew was the Doctor's way of concealing his pain about his new daughter's current attitude. "What's that then, what's a Source? I like a Source; what is it?"

"The Breath of Life," Cobb replied.

"Which is...?" the Brigadier asked, exchanging a brief, anxious glance with the Doctor at the memories evoked by that statement; both of them still keenly recalled the mess that Nancy Norton could have caused with those Semquess phials if they hadn't managed to stop her (Admittedly after causing the circumstances that made her a problem originally).

"In the beginning the great one breathed life into the universe," the young soldier said, an eager smile on his face as though he didn't even realise how he sounded. "And then she looked at what she'd done, and she sighed."

"'She'?" Jenny repeated with a smile. "I like that."

"A myth?" the Brigadier said, looking sceptically at Cobb; he'd known on a theoretical level that there were commanders like this- commanders who allowed themselves to be so consumed by their missions that they kept on fighting without any clear idea why they were doing it-, but actually _encountering _one- and a human one at that- was almost unbelievable. "You're trying to win this war with something from a _myth_?"

"It's not myth," Cobb said, his tone suggesting a simple certainty. "It's real, that sigh. From the beginning of time it was caught and kept as the Source. It was lost when the war started. But it's here, somewhere. Whoever holds the Source controls the destiny of the planet."

"Ah!" the Doctor said, his attention having been focused on the map while Cobb was speaking. "I thought so! There's a suppressed layer of information in this map, if I can just..."

Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor quickly aimed it at the device that was projecting the map, prompting the device to rotate, more tunnels appearing on it that hadn't been displayed earlier.

"See?" the Doctor said, smiling over at the group, his usual enthusiasm for knowledge temporarily pushing aside his issues with their current situation. "A whole network of tunnels hidden from sight."

"That must be the lost temple..." Cobb muttered, staring at a room on the map that was significantly larger than the others before he turned back to look at the Doctor. "The Source will be inside, and you've shown us the way! And look, we're closer than the Hath! It's ours!"

Before any of them could say anything, Cobb had turned around and was walking back into the hall, addressing the younger soldier as he walked. "Tell them to prepare to move out. We'll progenate new soldiers on the morning shift, then we march. Once we reach the Temple, peace will be restored at long last."

"Uh, call me old-fashioned," the Doctor said, grabbing Cobb's arm and pulling him back as he looked urgently at the general, "but if you really wanted peace couldn't you just stop fighting?"

"Only when we have the Source," Cobb said resolutely. "It'll give us the power to erase every stinking Hath from the face of this planet!"

"I'm sorry; you're going to use something called the Breath of Life to win a _war_?" the Brigadier interjected, briefly rolling his eyes in frustration before he looked over at the Doctor. "Doctor, please assure me that I was never as bad as him?"

"If you had the same amount of information as him you'd _already _have been questioning what you had here; I'd just need to point you in the right direction-" the Doctor began.

"_Enough_!" Cobb said, glaring between the Doctor, the Brigadier and Donna. "You know _nothing _of this situation; destroying the Hath is the only hope for peace-"

"Sorry, but when it comes to genocide, that's _never _a solution in my book," the Doctor said, glaring resolutely at Cobb. "If you think they're the same thing, look up genocide in the dictionary, and you'll see a little picture of me there, and the caption will read 'Over my dead body'!"

"And you're the one who showed us the path to victory?" Cobb said, actually smirking slightly as he looked at the Doctor before his eyes narrowed. "But you can consider the irony from your prison cell. Cline, at arms!"

Almost automatically, the young soldier had his gun aimed at the Doctor, the Brigadier and Donna, the Doctor and Donna automatically raising both arms while the Brigadier raised one, the other still holding on to his stick.

"Oi oi oi!" Donna yelled indignantly. "All right, keep your hair on, Rambo!"

"Take them away, I won't have them spreading treason," Cobb said grimly. "And if you try anything, _Doctor_, I'll see that your woman dies first."

"We're-!" the Doctor began, evidently about to protest before a pointed glare from the Brigadier shut him up; the odds of these people finding Martha might be slim, but the Brigadier didn't want his old friend's tendency to keep talking to result in him giving away something they could use later.

"This way," the now-named Cline said, indicating with his gun.

"I'm going to stop you, Cobb," the Doctor said, pointing one warning finger at the man in front of him, apparently unconcerned about the gun aiming at him at present. "You need to know that."

"I have an army and the breath of god on my side, Doctor," Cobb replied disdainfully. "What do you have?"

"This," the Doctor said, pointing at his own head.

"And that can be a _very _devastating weapon; this man once defeated a being who controlled a power on at _least _the same level as your 'Source' using only a recorder-" the Brigadier began.

"Enough of your lies, old man," Cobb practically spat, glaring disdainfully at the three before him before he turned back to Cline. "Lock them up and guard them."

"What about the new soldier?" Cline asked. Hearing herself being referred to, Jenny stepped forward, a simplicity about the stare she directed towards Cobb as she waited for the 'general's' instructions once again reminding the Brigadier why he'd liked Benton back in the day; the man might have been a loyal soldier, but he'd proven time and again that he'd only _remain _loyal to his superior officers if they proved they were worth his loyalty...

"Can't trust her, she's from pacifist stock," Cobb said, dismissively shoving Jenny into the Doctor's arms. "Take them all!"

* * *

"Well," the Brigadier said, the four of them now standing in their cell, as he turned to look at the Doctor with a grim smile, "this is certainly something that hasn't happened to me before."

"One thing you missed out on by not travelling with me that much, Brigadier; I see a lot of cells when I don't have official identification to be in certain places," the Doctor said with a nonchalant shrug before he sat down on a small bench in their cell, staring contemplatively forward at nothing in particular. "Anyway, that's not important right now; what _is _important is that, even if the _story _about the 'Breath of Life' isn't true, there's definitely _something _in that chamber that we need to get to before Cobb uses it to kill the Hath."

"Hold on, you mean it's not true?" Jenny asked, her expression briefly putting the Brigadier in mind of a child who'd just been told that Santa wasn't real.

"No, it's not," Donna replied, shaking her head as she looked regretfully at the girl. "I'm sorry."

"Regardless of the accuracy of the myth, it's clear that we need to get there first," the Brigadier asked, his military mind already going over the possible alternatives in this situation. "So, Doctor, I assume that the immediate goal is to break out of this cell, get to the 'Source'- whatever it is- and use it to force a truce?"

"Once we've found Martha, anyway," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "Still, whatever the Source is, it's definitely the key to all this; so long as we can beat Cobb to it..."

His voice trailed off as he noticed Jenny staring at him with evident admiration. "Uh... what are you staring at?"

"You keep insisting you're not a soldier, but look at you!" Jenny said, smiling in admiration at him. "Drawing up strategies like a proper general-"

"Alistair's the military one here; I'm just trying to stop the fighting," the Doctor replied.

"Isn't every soldier?" Jenny replied with a brief shrug.

"There is a difference between fighting to stop a war and fighting to kill the enemy, young woman," the Brigadier put in, turning to look pointedly at Jenny as she turned to face him. "It might not be immediately obvious, but there is a distinction, and it's an important one that your commander in there has completely forgotten if he ever knew it, I assure you."

"Well said, Alistair," the Doctor said, smiling thankfully at his friend. "Quite right too..."

He paused for a moment, the two old comrades sharing a smile, before he stood up and clapped his hands together. "Anyway, moving on, Donna, give me your phone; time for an upgrade!"

"And now you've got a weapon-!" Jenny began, enthusiasm mingling with confusion as the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the phone in his hand.

"A _weapon_, Miss... Smith," the Brigadier said- he knew that giving her a surname might be overdoing it, but 'Miss Jenny' didn't sound right to him-, "is something that you use to fight directly against the enemy; the Doctor uses tools that _prevent _him from having to resort to fighting-"

"_Martha_!" the Doctor yelled, suddenly interrupting their discussion, a broad smile on his face as he spoke into the phone. "You're alive!"

He paused for a moment, listening to Martha's response, and nodded. "I'm with Donna and Alistair, we're fine; what about you?"

"And Jenny; she's fine too!" Donna added.

"Yes, all right," the Doctor muttered, before turning his attention back to the phone. "And Jenny... yes, the woman from the machine, the soldier, my daughter, but you don't have to- you're not- _she's _not... anyway, where are you?"

After listening to Martha for a few moments, he swallowed awkwardly.

"Oh... that was me," he muttered in a low voice. "If both armies are heading that way, there's going to be a bloodbath..."

He paused to listen to Martha's response, and then he spoke again. "If you can do anything to delay the Hath without endangering yourself, do it; right now I..."

His voice trailed off as he took the phone away from his ear, looking at it in frustration. "She must have run out of power; I've lost her."

"So much for _that_..." Donna muttered.

"What's the situation, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked.

"Well, apparently activating the map gave the Hath the information on it as well," the Doctor said, looking grimly up at his friend, the sound of cheering humans above them reminding him of the humans currently present. "Martha might be able to delay them, but we need to move fast; if we don't beat _both _species there, there's going to be a bloodbath..."

"Right then," the Brigadier said, nodding grimly at the Doctor as he indicated where Cline was standing on guard, "our first step has to be getting past that guard-"

"I can deal with him-" Jenny began, walking towards the door, only for the Doctor to grab her arm and halt her mid-step.

"No no no no," he said, looking pointedly at her. "You're not going anywhere."

"What?" Jenny asked, looking at him with the same dejection she'd shown when Cobb had ordered her to be imprisoned with them.

"You belong here, with _them_," the Doctor spat.

"Doctor," the Brigadier said, stepping forward before Donna could say anything, "I understand your issues with her creation, but she's not _just _a soldier; she's your _daughter_-"

"_She's NOT_!" the Doctor practically hissed, spinning around to glare at the Brigadier as he waved a hand at Jenny. "You met Susan, Brigadier; you can't even _begin _to think that... _she_... could compare to _her_!"

"Uh... Susan?" Donna asked uncertainly.

"The Doctor's granddaughter," the Brigadier replied, his memory flashing briefly back to that woman he'd met for such a brief time during the Game of Rassilon, followed by his more lengthy encounter with her during his first (Although apparently second from her perspective) meeting with Miss Noble...

Donna's eyes widened.

"_Granddaughter_?" she repeated, looking at the Doctor incredulously. "You're a _granddad_?"

"I'm... an aunt?" Jenny asked, slightly uncertainly, clearly unclear how to cope with knowledge of such a role without her programming to 'fall back on'.

"I was," the Doctor replied simply, responding to Donna's question rather than Jenny's. "She died in the War."

"Oh," Donna said, her expression briefly faltering as she realised the implications of the subject she'd just unintentionally brought up, before she stared at him with renewed intensity as she indicated Jenny. "But that doesn't mean you just _ditch _her; she's still-"

"_I know_," the Doctor practically growled, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Donna, his eyes displaying a focused intensity of conflicting emotions that the Brigadier hadn't seen his old friend express since that dark day when they'd witnessed the body of Claire Aldwych, lying burning beside the body of Adolf Hitler, killed to conceal the war's greatest and most terrible secret when so many other bodies could have been used...

"But," the Doctor continued, looking briefly at Jenny before he turned back to Donna, "her two hearts do _not _make her a Time Lord; there's more to that than _biology_."

"What's a Time Lord?" Jenny asked, her voice a quiet, inquiring tone that made the Brigadier feel somewhat more sympathetic towards her; unlike her earlier near-fanaticism, right now she merely sounded uncomfortably curious, like a child wanting to know where a missing relative was.

"It's... who I am," the Doctor said at last, his tone brief in a half-hearted effort to conceal his pain at this discussion. "It's where I'm from."

"And I'm from you-" Jenny began.

"You're an _echo_, that's all," the Doctor said, his voice trembling as he turned to look at her. "A Time Lord is so much more; a sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history, a shared _suffering_..."

He paused for a moment, clearly fighting to regain his emotional control at such a difficult topic, before he continued to speak.

"Only it's gone now," he said, his voice lower as the memories of that time when he'd been more than the lonely man in his Police Box filled his mind (Not that the Brigadier could blame him; he'd seen the Doctor's reaction when he'd first learned what had happened to Gallifrey, and that kind of grief could never fully go away). "All of it. Gone forever."

"What happened?" Jenny asked quietly, stepping closer to him.

"There was a war," the Doctor said simply.

"Like this one?" Jenny asked uncertainly, her voice so naive that the Brigadier's initial anger at her apparent inability to live up to her father's example was pushed aside at this fresh reminder of just how young she was.

"Bigger," the Doctor responded, after a brief, humourless chuckle at the idea of a conflict that was basically a playground skirmish on his usual scale being comparable to the war that left him the last of his kind. "So much bigger."

"And you fought?" Jenny asked, pressing for more information. "And killed?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, the pain in his body language at the recollection of all the times he'd failed to live up to his own moral standards clear to the Brigadier.

"Then how are we different?" Jenny asked.

"Your commanding officer is leading you in a fight for territory on a practically dead planet for a reason that apparently neither side can remember," the Brigadier interjected, glaring over at Jenny to ensure she understood what he was saying to her as he spoke. "The Doctor and the Time Lords went to war against a race that would have destroyed every other race in the universe simply for the 'crime' of not being like them, a race who would have annihilated the _universe _if he hadn't stopped them... and, even after he lost the family of his birth in that struggle, the Doctor has _never _allowed conflict to define his life."

He paused for a moment, making sure that Jenny had understood what he was saying to her- he'd explain the 'family of his birth' bit later with the Doctor's permission; this wasn't the time to explain how the Doctor's companions were also his family-, before he continued. "Your father is not a soldier, Jenny; he is a scientist and a traveller, fighting out of necessity, putting his own desire for exploration aside to defend the rights of those who cannot defend themselves against those who would seek to crush the defenceless merely because they are there, and ensure that those who wield power cannot use it to cause harm."

For a moment, as the Brigadier and the Doctor's daughter looked at each other, the Brigadier almost thought that he could see the same spark of idealism he'd seen in Miss Grant before she'd left them, the passion to be part of something greater than herself filling her eyes... the same resolution and drive that the Doctor always seemed to inspire in the men and women who joined him...

"Then we'll do that here," Jenny said, nodding resolutely. "We'll get out of here, and stop Cobb and the Hath using the Source to hurt anyone else."

Despite their still-confined circumstances, the Brigadier couldn't help but smile.

It was slow progress, but it was definitely _progress_...

* * *

"Here we are!" the Doctor said, studying the map they'd taken from the guard that Jenny had knocked out earlier, their cell now long behind them (Although the Brigadier hoped they wouldn't take too long to reach their destination; he might not exactly be inactive these days, but he was far from the physical specimen he'd been in his prime even without his hip slowing him down). "The hidden tunnel; there must be a control panel!"

As he turned his sonic screwdriver onto the locked door, searching for the panel in question, Donna's attention was drawn to another numbered plate at the end of the corridor.

"It's another one of those numbers," she said, indicating the plate in question to her current companions. "They're everywhere."

"Some old cataloguing system for measuring out material during the original construction, perhaps?" the Brigadier suggested.

"Maybe..." Donna reflected, before she turned to the Doctor. "You got a pen, bit of paper?"

Briefly putting the screwdriver between his teeth, the Doctor rummaged briefly in his pockets before pulling out the requested items and passing them to Donna.

"'Cause, d'you see," Donna continued, indicating the panel as she began to note it down, "the numbers are counting down; this one ends in 1-4, the prison cell said 1-6..."

"Always _thinking_, all three of you," Jenny said, looking between them with a slight smile. "Who are you people?"

"I told you, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor replied, his attention once again on probing the door.

"The Doctor?" Jenny repeated. "That's it?"

"He uses 'John Smith' for identification purposes at times- I'm sure we would have no objections to you using 'Smith' as your own surname, on that topic-, but all he has ever identified himself as to us is 'the Doctor'," the Brigadier confirmed.

"Thanks," Jenny said, smiling briefly at him before she turned her attention back to her father. "So... you don't have a name either? Are you an anomaly too?"

"No," the Doctor replied briefly.

"Oh, come off it!" Donna said, even as she continued studying the plate. "You're the most anomalous bloke I've ever met!"

"That's the way he's always been, Miss Noble," the Brigadier said with a slight smile.

"Oi!" the Doctor said, before he smiled in relief as he removed a panel from the wall in front of him to reveal the control panel. "Here it is!"

"And 'Time Lords'..." Jenny continued, looking curiously at him, "what are they for exactly?"

"'For'?" the Doctor repeated, looking at Jenny in confusion at the strangeness of the last question even as he continued working away at the panel. "They're not 'for' anything."

"So... what do you do?" Jenny asked.

"I travel," the Doctor replied. "Through time and space."

"Saving planets, rescuing civilisations, and defeating those who would use their power to oppress and dominate the weak through a varied combination of his own skills and those of the friends he gathers around him," the Brigadier finished, smiling briefly over at his friend as the two exchanged a glance, remembering all their old adventures together, both when officially and unofficially affiliated with UNIT...

"And runs a lot," Donna added dismissively. "Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved-"

"Got it!" the Doctor yelled, the door sliding open to allow them access to the next passage, just before the sound of Cobb's voice came up the passage.

"Best to keep moving then, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked.

"Naturally," the Doctor replied, nodding at his oldest friend before he turned to Donna and Jenny. "Well then; _allons-y_!"

"What does that mean?" Jenny asked.

"Basically, Miss Smith, it means move," the Brigadier said, hurrying along down the passage as fast as he could, only for their trip to be brought to a halt when they came to a corridor protected by a massive laser grid, laser beams blocking any attempt they might have made to travel further.

"Ah," the Brigadier said, looking over at the Doctor as he threw a clockwork mouse- the one he'd used earlier to distract the guard that Jenny had disarmed, the Brigadier noted- into the lights and watched as it was destroyed the second it touched a beam. "Well, _this _is going to be difficult..."

"Arming device," the Doctor said, turning his attention to a control panel nearby, quickly starting his analysis of the machinery as the sound of the approaching soldiers drew ever closer. "Just give me a few moments..."

"Doctor, as much as I admire your scientific talents, I doubt we _have _those few moments-!" the Brigadier began, only for Jenny to start to run back the way they had come before the Doctor grabbed her arm.

"Where are you going?" he hissed urgently.

"I can hold them up-!" Jenny began.

"No!" the Doctor practically hissed, staring intently at the young girl. "We don't need any more dead."

"But it's them or us-" Jenny began.

"Not on this occasion, Miss Smith," the Brigadier said, looking pointedly at the girl, aware of his friend's stare in his direction. "Sometimes such a situation can arise, but this is not one of them; we merely need them delayed, we do _not _need people _dead_."

"I'm trying to save your life-!" Jenny began.

"Motive is no excuse for killing; we always have a choice, Miss Smith," the Brigadier said, staring intently at her. "Your father taught that to me a long time ago; can you live up to his example?"

For a moment, Jenny just stared between them, and then she turned around and ran off, leaving the Doctor with no other option but to return to his work on the panel. Even when the sound of gunfire reached their ears, the Doctor continued to work away in silence, his attention focused on the task at hand to the exclusion of all else.

"What's his _problem_?" Donna asked, indicating the Doctor as he worked even as she directed her gaze to the Brigadier. "So he lost his family in the War; doesn't mean he can't make another-"

"Him beginning his current relationship with Doctor Jones was already an exceptional leap as far as personal relationships go, Miss Noble; you can hardly expect him to dive into something as significant as fatherhood particularly easily," the Brigadier responded; his own memories of how his relationship with Fiona had fallen apart during UNIT's early days was something he'd never quite get past, no matter how much he loved his current life with Doris.

Further reflection on the Doctor's personal relationships were cut short as the laser beams shut down, leaving the passageway in front of them clear.

"We're in the clear!" the Brigadier called back, hurrying down the corridor as fast as he could.

"Jenny!" the Doctor added, as he got back to his feet. "Leave it; let's go!"

"You're a child of the machine!" the Brigadier heard Cobb yell out as he walked, the Doctor and Donna just behind him (The General was evidently trying to win Jenny over once again, although the Brigadier couldn't help but wonder what made Cobb think that would work after he'd thrown Jenny in a cell already; were soldiers programmed with such a high level of 'dedication' that such an issue wouldn't matter, or did Cobb just have an over-inflated opinion of himself?). "You're one of us. Join us in the war against the Hath. It's in your blood, girl; don't deny it!"

For a moment, there was silence, and then there was a brief sound of steam before Jenny appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Come on!" the Doctor yelled, his hand outstretched towards her. "That's it-!"

Just before Jenny could enter the corridor, the red beams activated once again, leaving her trapped on the other side of a thick laser network.

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor yelled, staring in frustration at the new barricade between the,. "The circuit's looped back!"

"And with the control panel down at _that _end..." the Brigadier concluded grimly.

"Well then," Jenny said, smiling as she threw her gun to the side, "I'll have to manage on my own, then; watch and learn, Father!"

Before any of them could call out to try and stop her, Jenny ran forward and sprang herself over the first laser, subsequently flipping over each red beam without stopping in a gymnastic-esque display that the Brigadier had never seen the like of.

"But... that's impossible..." Donna whispered.

"If there's one thing being with the Doctor should teach you, Miss Noble," the Brigadier said, smiling over at his old friend as the Doctor's face split into a broad grin at the display before him, "it's that 'impossible' is no longer a word."

"Exactly; 'unlikely' at best," the Doctor said, his smile growing broader as Jenny landed in front of them, only to be met with an enthusiastic hug from her father. "Brilliant! You were brilliant; _brilliant_!"

"I didn't kill him!" Jenny said, talking as eagerly as her father once he'd put her down. "General Cobb; I could have killed him, but I didn't! You were right; I have a choice!"

The sight of the soldiers arriving ended any further opportunities for the father/daughter bonding moment to develop further, Jenny and Donna running off down the corridor as the Doctor and Brigadier remained to address Cobb.

"If you have any degree of sense in that head of yours, Cobb, I would recommend that you surrender now!" the Brigadier called down to the other man.

"I'll make this simple!" the Doctor added, his own gaze fixed on the general. "If the Source is a weapon, I'm going to make sure you never use it!"

"One of us is going to die today and it won't be me!" Cobb countered, raising his gun to fire just as the Doctor and the Brigadier ducked to the side.

"And it's that attitude which is going to _ensure _that you lose this war!" the Brigadier called back as he and the Time Lord ran after their friends.

The Brigadier just hoped that his 'declaration' was correct; Cobb's arrogance and inability to compromise would definitely handicap him in this situation, but would it be _enough _of a handicap...?

* * *

"So," Jenny asked, looking curiously at Donna, the Doctor leading the way down the corridor while the Brigadier kept up the rear a few paces behind them, "you travel together, but you're not... 'together'?"

"What?" Donna asked, looking at the young blonde in surprise before she shook her head vehemently as she realised the implications of what Jenny had said. "No, no! No way! We're friends, that's all; it's _Martha _he's dating, and I'm never entirely sure if that's legal, what with the different species thing..."

"I assure you, Miss Noble," the Brigadier said, putting on a brief burst of speed to catch up with the two women, "anything the Doctor and Doctor Jones share is fully legal; the Doctor has been listed in our records as essentially an 'honorary human' since he was first affiliated with UNIT in the seventies, and that is even without any documentation he himself created prior to our contact with him."

"Oh," Donna said simply.

"And... Martha Jones?" Jenny asked, looking slightly uncertainly between the Brigadier and Donna. "What... what's she like?"

"The most courageous- and at least _one_ of the most compassionate- woman I have ever known," the Brigadier said simply, recalling the tales that the Doctor, Captain Yates and Miss McShane had told him about Martha's actions during a terrible year that only a select few still remembered after the events of the _Valiant _had concluded. "Your father could not have a more loyal partner in his life, Miss Smith, I assure you."

He just hoped that his answer would suffice for Jenny right now; he still had no way of knowing how Martha would react to having a daughter added to the 'baggage' that the Doctor carried around with him...

"And what's it like, the travelling?" Jenny asked, her eagerness reawakened by this less emotionally challenging topic.

"Ah, never a dull moment," Donna replied, smiling at the memory. "Can be terrifying, brilliant, and funny, sometimes all at the same time."

"But if you can be assured of one thing when you know the Doctor," the Brigadier said, smiling over at his friend's daughter, "it's simple; he will _always _show you worlds beyond anything you could have possibly imagined."

"I'd love to see new worlds..." Jenny reflected wistfully.

"Well, I see no reason why you shouldn't," the Brigadier said, smiling briefly at her before he looked over to where his friend was still studying the map. "Isn't that right, Doctor?"

"Mmm?" the Doctor asked, glancing back.

"I assume you'll be taking Jenny Smith here to a few places once we're done here?" the Brigadier said.

"I suppose so," the Doctor said after a brief pause, looking back at Jenny with a slight smile.

"You mean..." Jenny began, looking almost unbelievingly at the Doctor. "You mean you'll take me with you?"

"Can't leave you here, can we?" the Doctor replied, only to be interrupted from anything else he might have had to say on the topic when Jenny ran up and threw her arms around him, the grin on both their faces all the assurance the Brigadier and Donna needed.

Jenny might not be able to replace the Doctor's _old _family, but they both had a strong feeling that she would make a great addition to the new one.

For a moment, as the Doctor stared at the other door leading out from the complex system of pipes that served as the ship's fusion engines, he couldn't help but wonder what he was going to do next; for all his attempts to avoid taking sides, the Hath still had Martha prisoner, and he still didn't _know _what had provoked this conflict in the first place...

Then his eyes fell on exactly what he needed to fill in that last unanswered question, and thoughts of potential danger were pushed aside in favour of the possibility of new answers.

"Ship's log!" he said, grinning enthusiastically as he began to rapidly tap away at the keyboard before him. "'First wave of Human/Hath co-colonisation of planet Messaline'."

"So... this _is _the original ship?" the Brigadier asked.

"Seems to be, anyway," the Doctor replied as he studied the screen, his usual interest in history pushed aside in favour of learning something about this mess that had kept him and Martha apart far longer than he liked to be away from her when dealing with an unknown hostile environment (She might have shown that she could take care of herself during both his three months as John Smith and the Year That Never Was, but that didn't mean he _liked _putting her in danger). "Robot drones used to build the city... c'mon, c'mon, c'mon... ah-_ha_; 'Mission commander dead... still no agreement on who should assume leadership; Hath and humans have divided into _factions_'; that must be it!"

"That makes sense, anyway; the crew split into factions during the power vacuum," the Brigadier said. "Add in the ability to use those progenation machines, and it wouldn't take long until you had two armies fighting each other..."

"Two armies that are now _both _outside-!" Jenny began urgently.

"Look at that!" Donna suddenly yelled, indicating a screen displaying the same numerical sequence that they'd seen in the tunnels earlier.

"More numbers; so?" the Brigadier asked, hoping the red-haired woman had a point behind her current reasoning.

"Look, _Alistair_," Donna said, turning briefly to glare at him, "I may not be all science-whizzy like Martian-boy, but I spent six months working as a temp in Hounslow Library, and I mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. I'm good with numbers! It's staring us in the face!"

"What is?" Jenny asked.

"It's the _date_," Donna said, the Doctor moving in to stand beside her before the Brigadier could even blink as she continued to explain her reasoning. "Assuming the first two numbers are some big old space date, then you've got year, month, day. It's the other way round, like it is in America!"

"Oh!" the Doctor said, hitting his forehead in evident frustration at not realising it earlier. "It's the New Byzantine Calendar!"

"So... the numbers we saw out there..." the Brigadier said, realisation dawning as he turned over this new information in his mind.

"Completion dates for the sector, counting out as the city gets built!" Donna finished, smiling enthusiastically back at him.

"Very go- hold on," the Brigadier began, looking with renewed intensity at the date before them. "If this gives us the _current _date... that first number you pointed out was only seven days before..."

"Yeah, exactly," Donna nodded. "6012-07-17 out in the theatre, 6012-07-24 in _here_..."

"What does it mean?" Jenny asked urgently.

"Seven days," the Doctor said simply.

The Brigadier's eyes widened at the implications of that sentence.

"Seven _days_?" he repeated incredulously. "You mean... this entire _generations_-long war... took only _seven days_?"

Even with the progenation machines taken into account, that only made it worse; people churned out all those lives, causing death on such a scale that they had reached a generation that was already _thousands _removed from the first one, in only _seven days_...

"But all the buildings..." Jenny protested weakly, clearly trying to latch on to something from the past she'd been programmed to acknowledge. "The encampments... they're in _ruins_..."

"They're not _ruins_, they were never finished in the first place!" the Brigadier finished, before a thought occurred to him. "But then... what about...?"

"The _Source_!" the Doctor finished for him, turning to run down another corridor, only to pause when he saw the figure standing at the other end. "_Martha_?"

The small group with the Doctor didn't even have time to avert their eyes to give the Time Lord privacy before he had wrapped Martha up in his arms, kissing her like he hadn't seen her in months, the two so wrapped up in each other's mouths that they probably wouldn't have noticed if the two armies following them had arrived.

Looking over at Jenny, the Brigadier and Donna exchanged a secret smile at the slightly pleased-yet-hopeful expression on the young woman's face; clearly, when it came to the woman who seemed destined to become her 'stepmother', Jenny's only real emotion was hope that she'd be lived rather than anything else.

"_Great _to see you!" the Doctor said, still grinning at her when he parted from her.

"And you!" Martha replied, shooting her own grin at the Brigadier and Donna, only for her smile to falter as her eyes met Jenny's.

"Hi," Jenny said, waving at her in a polite-yet-uncertain manner. "So... you're dating my dad, then?"

"Uh... yeah, I am," Martha replied, shooting a briefly inquiring glance at the Doctor, before the sound of a voice from down the corridor ended further thought of conversation at the moment.

* * *

As he stood in the middle of the garden where the 'Source'- it was easier to call it that than remember the Doctor's complex explanation of what it did- had resided for the past week, watching the shining gas that had been contained within the sphere spreading from the room to envelop the planet, the Brigadier couldn't help but smile in relief.

He might have been a soldier long before he'd ever met the Doctor, but this... witnessing the rebirth of an entire planet... a victory without a victim on either side after their arrival...

_This _was what it meant when the Doctor arrived.

Things might not be easy for Cobb's men or the Hath from this point onwards- each side had, from their perspective, spent a long time fighting each other, after all-, but the Doctor had given them a chance that _nobody _could turn down...

"NO!" Jenny suddenly screamed, the Brigadier spinning around just in time to see Cobb fire his gun at the Doctor, only for Jenny to step in front of her father and take the bullet for him.

As the young girl fell to the ground, the Brigadier didn't stop to think; he simply raised his cane and knocked Cobb's gun clean out of his hand, waiting only long enough to confirm that Cobb's former soldiers were holding him down before he turned to join his friend, the Time Lord tearfully cradling the young girl in his lap.

"Jenny?" the Doctor said, looking urgently at her as Martha knelt down to check the girl's wound, clearly fighting to maintain a professional approach despite the tears in the corner of her eyes. "Jenny! Talk to me, Jenny!"

"Doctor?" the Brigadier asked, his mind briefly flashing back to the remarkable occasion when he'd seen the Doctor regenerate right in front of him, and the circumstances that had brought that about. "Can you... help her?"

"She's had no training; I can't give her cells a complete crash-course in what to do when they've had so little time to adjust..." the Doctor said, his gaze still fixed on the girl in his arms. "Jenny, be strong now; you need to hold on..."

"A new world..." Jenny whispered, looking up at where the gases gathered and began to spread out above them. "It's beautiful..."

"Hold on, d'you hear me?" the Doctor repeated, smiling shakily at her. "We've got things to do, you and me..."

"And me," Martha said, crouching down beside the Doctor as she reached over to take Jenny's other hand, smiling slightly at the girl, her discomfort forgotten in the face of this new shift. "After all... I'm your mother, right?"

"Mother...?" Jenny whispered uncertainly, her finger gently stroking Martha's cheek as Martha raised the hand she was holding up to her face.

"Yep..." the Doctor said, the word lacking its usual enthusiasm as he looked at the rapidly-fading girl in his arms. "You're our daughter... and you've only just got started. We can go anywhere- we can go _everywhere_- and not even the sky's the limit. With just me as your dad, you'd be great, but with Martha as your mum, and Aunt Donna and Uncle Alistair... you're going to be more than great; you're going to be _amazing_..."

For a moment, Jenny smiled at him, the joy in her eyes surpassing the pain for a moment...

Then the moment passed, and she fell back in the Doctor's arms, her eyes closed, all the previously-witnessed signs of life gone from her body.

"No..." the Doctor whispered, tearfully cradling her body as he looked up at Martha. "She's like me... I've come through worse than _that_... if we wait..."

"If she hasn't started already, Doctor... I don't think she's going to," the Brigadier said, his memory drifting back to that dark day when he'd seen the man he'd known for over five years lying on his own laboratory floor, returned to them after a three-week absence only to die of radiation poisoning, him and Miss Smith unable to do anything but watch before K'anpo appeared to them.

"Maybe..." he began, pausing for a moment before he spoke again, knowing that he had to at least voice his doubts. "Maybe the machine just wasn't good enough to copy you _that _well; it didn't get enough of you..."

"No," the Doctor contradicted, shaking his head tearfully. "Too much... that's the truth of it.

She was too much like me."

For a moment, silence filled the room as the Doctor laid Jenny to the ground, his hand briefly resting against her face before he pressed his lips to her forehead, his shoulders shaking slightly from barely-suppressed sobs, before he stood up, turned around, walked over to where Cobb was held to the ground by his own former soldiers, and picked up Cobb's discarded weapon, aiming it directly at Cobb's head even as Donna and Martha stared at him in shock.

Even after his decades of experience with the Doctor, the Brigadier wasn't sure what his old friend was going to do next; the Doctor might pride himself on never killing, but after what Cobb had taken from him, simply because he couldn't accept the change and good that the Doctor had brought to his world...

There wasn't a single part of the Brigadier that could think of a reason _why _the Doctor should let Cobb live-

Then the Doctor flicked the gun's safety back on and crouched down so that he was face-to-face with Cobb, his gaze fixed on the other man as he held the gun by the barrel.

"I never would," he said simply, his tone grim as he stared at the man who had just destroyed the first family he'd had since he lost his people. "Have you got that? I. _Never_. Would!"

With that said, the Doctor got to his feet once again, his body language tense as he continued to speak.

"When you start this new world," he proclaimed, turning to address the people gathered around them, "this world of Human and Hath... remember that! Make the foundation of this society, _a man who never would_!"

Looking at the people around him as they stared at the Doctor, the Brigadier knew that his old friend had succeeded in that regard at least.

Whatever else people left this room with today, they would leave the room with the impression of a man who, no matter what the circumstances, would _never _kill...

* * *

"So..." the Brigadier said, staring uncertainly at the Doctor as they stood in front of the TARDIS, the ship having materialised in his garden after the Doctor's departure from Messaline after making the necessary arrangements for Jenny's funeral, Donna and Martha allowing the two men to say their goodbyes outside before departing once more, "you'll... be all right, Doctor?"

"'Course I will be," the Doctor replied, patting the TARDIS behind him with a brief smile. "I've still got the TARDIS, and Martha's still here- to say nothing of Donna-"

"But it's not the same, is it?" the Brigadier interjected, looking pointedly at his friend.

After a moment's silence, the Doctor sighed.

"No," he said, his tone expressing a weakness the Brigadier had never heard from the Doctor before. "I thought I was past the worst of it... I thought that I could _cope _with the risk... I thought that I was _ready _to go that far... and then..."

The Brigadier didn't need the Doctor to finish his sentence; he understood all too well what his friend was saying.

"You'll get there, Doctor," he said reassuringly.

"How do you know?" the Doctor asked.

"Because you're the Doctor," the Brigadier replied simply.

It wasn't much, the Brigadier knew, but it was what needed to be said.

No matter what else happened to him, the Doctor always found a way to triumph where others would give up; it was as much a part of him as the TARDIS or his ability to regenerate.

What had happened on Messaline was a terrible blow for the Doctor, but he would come through it as he had always come through trouble in the past; his own strength of will, and the help of his many friends.

"Thanks, Alistair," the Doctor said, smiling briefly at his old companion.

"Whenever you need me, Doctor," the Brigadier responded.

With that, the two men shook hands, and then turned around and walked back into their respective lives, the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising reaching the Brigadier's ears before he'd even reached the door.

_Good luck, Doctor_, he thought after his old friend.

If his memory served- and his limited understanding of time travel was accurate-, his friend would soon need all the luck he could get...


	11. From Soldier to Hostage

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: This might begin with Jenny's departure from Messaline, but its connection to the villain interludes will soon become obvious, I assure you...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As Jenny's eyes opened, she couldn't help but smile at the mere notion that she was still able to see anything.

Just like her father had subconsciously speculated- not that she could blame him for not consciously realising it; this kind of situation wasn't exactly normal- when he'd left that telepathic 'imprint' while trying to reach her 'dead' mind, the fact that she'd only been a few hours old had meant that her Gallifreyian physiology had regarded her as still being in the first few hours of a new incarnation, allowing her to heal her injuries with a simple healing coma without the necessity of a regeneration despite the normally fatal nature of the wound she'd sustained...

"Hello, boys," she said, smiling up at Cline and the Hath that were standing over her body. "All's good here, right?"

"Uh... yeah," Cline said, nodding slightly uncertainly as he looked at her like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or panic.

"Good," Jenny said with a resolute nod.

Before either of them could stop her, Jenny was on her feet and running back towards the ship, her new goal clear in her mind.

Her father might not be here right now- and he was probably never coming back; with her 'dead' he wouldn't exactly have much reason to want to do so-, but if she was going to live up to her legacy as his daughter- to say nothing of having any chance of finding him-, it was time for her to move on from this place.

In a matter of moments, she had reached the main ship once again- this route far easier now that the doors were open and she knew where to go-, opened the door to the first small shuttle she came across- _without _the need for a sonic screwdriver; half the things her father did with that he only dealt with that way because it was quicker than doing them the hard way-, and had settled into the single chair in the ship's control area before she even heard the faintest trace of footsteps behind her. In a matter of seconds, the engines were back on and powering up, the shuttle displaying an almost full fuel supply as Jenny prepared to launch herself away from this world...

"_Jenny_?" Cline's voice said over the intercom. "_What're you doing? Come back_!"

"Sorry, can't stop," Jenny replied nonchalantly, continuing to flick the switches that would set the ship in motion. "What are you going to do; tell my dad?"

"_But where are you going_?" Cline asked in desperation.

"Oh, I've got the whole _universe_!" Jenny replied, settling back in the ship as she took a tight hold of the steering controls, her course set for the sky above her, her smile broadening as she felt the ship shake around her from the stress she was putting on the engines. "Planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat... and an awful lot of running to do!"

As radio contact with the main ship faded, Jenny sat back in her small craft and allowed herself to revel in the sheer thrill of freedom she now felt; she might be limited to one time, but the _places _she could go to with this...

The sudden jolt as her shuttle came to a halt was a shock, but what was even more shocking was when Jenny suddenly found herself standing on a circular platform, a six-sided harshly-angled control console in the centre of the platform while a circular rail surrounded it, an unnerving liquid darkness below her as four figures stood around the console, looking at her with a disturbing smile on what she could see of their faces that did little to make Jenny feel comfortable.

_NO_! a female voice suddenly screamed in Jenny's head, prompting her to clutch her temple in pain; the intensity of the voice was uncomfortable even without her added confusion of its source. _Not HER_-!

"Of course her, _slave_," one of the figures before her spat, walking forward slightly to reveal a harsh face and long black robes. "She is such an ideal hostage against her father; why should we _not _take her?"

"Hostage?" Jenny repeated, automatically shifting into a combat stance as she tried to recall the brief impressions she'd received of how to operate the TARDIS from her father as she studied the console behind him; it wasn't quite the same as her father's ship, but something about it _was _familiar...

"Naturally, my girl," another man said, his voice a rich, deep baritone of a man who had accomplished a great deal in life while retaining the arrogance of a man who still sought more. "Your father had been a thorn in our sides in the past; with our latest plan in action, should we not secure a greater card against him than our mere presence?"

Jenny didn't bother responding; with her enemies possessing the significant advantages of numbers and knowledge of whatever territory she was currently in, her best chance at success was to strike when they weren't expecting it and hope that it would be-

Even as she began to lunge forward, her mind already racing for the best opponent to attack, one of the men- a short man who appeared to be sitting down- raised his right hand, and something struck her in the chest, the next thing she was even briefly aware of being the floor rushing up to meet her...

"Predictable as ever," the man who had spoken said mockingly as her vision dimmed. "Just like her father..."

* * *

AN 2: Well, there you have it; our first glimpse- however brief- of the villains and their current headquarters by someone outside their dark little band, accompanied by a couple of clues about WHO we're dealing with here...


	12. The Unicorn and the Wasp

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Well, here we are; "The Unicorn and the Wasp", and I hope you like it

AN 2: Bonus points to anyone who catches the relevance of the reference to the old series

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Come _on_, you two!" the Doctor said, impatiently tapping the TARDIS door as Donna and Martha changed into more appropriate clothing for the current time period (At least his own suit, even if it was a bit odd, wouldn't exactly be _too _out of place at this point in history; he just wasn't sure how he'd feel about getting back into his eighth body's old clothes...). "We'll be late for cocktails at this rate!"

A few moments later, the two women stepped out of the police box, Donna wearing a brown-and-gold shoulderless dress while Martha was wearing a long-sleeved dress in a deep purple, their hair up in buns at the back of their heads to go with the image.

"What d'you think?" Donna asked, indicating herself and Martha with a brief wave of their hands. "Flapper or slapper?"

"Flapper," the Doctor replied, linking arms with Martha as he smiled at Donna. "You both look lovely."

"Thanks," Martha said, leaning over to give the Doctor a brief kiss on the cheek before they continued walking.

Approaching the house, Donna and Martha couldn't help but be impressed at the style of the building before them; a large grey mansion with a significantly-sized garden, a small group of guests gathered in one area as a footman adjusted a music player on a table near an assortment of chairs in the garden, gathered around a table covered with various fruits and cakes.

"Look sharp, we have guests!" a woman said, clapping her hands together before walking off to attend to further arrangements.

"Good afternoon!" the Doctor said, waving casually at the staff as the three of them walked up.

"Drinks, sir? Ma'am?" the man who could only be a butler asked as he walked up to them.

"Sidecar, please," Donna said with a casual smile.

"Two lime and sodas," Martha added, exchanging a brief glance with the Doctor that was met with a confirming nod.

"May I announce, Lady Clemency Eddison," another voice said, prompting the three to turn around and see an older man in the same butler-stereotypical attire at the top of a small slight of stairs leading down to the house, an older woman in a long-sleeved dark blue dress and short curled blonde hair.

"Lady Eddison," the Doctor said, holding out his hand to shake hers with a casual smile as though he'd been purposefully invited rather than just dropping in at the last minute.

"Forgive me, but who exactly might you be... and what are you doing here?" Lady Eddison asked, sounding slightly bemused even as she shook the Doctor's hand.

"Doctor John Noble," the Doctor replied, smiling warmly at her as he indicated his companions. "This is my sister, Donna Noble- of the Chiswick Nobles, you know-, and my fiancé, Martha Jones."

Martha and Donna briefly shot shocked glances at the Doctor- although neither of them were certain what they were more shocked about; him introducing Martha as his fiancé or Donna as his sister, although the fact that he was using _her _name as an alias was a definite change from the norm-, but the currently public nature of their surroundings prevented further questions being asked about that choice of alias as the Doctor continued talking.

"We were thrilled to receive your invitation, my lady," the Doctor explained, as he pulled out the psychic paper and presented it to Lady Eddison, not even giving her time to ask any of the possible questions she might have about his and Martha's relationship. "We met at the Ambassador's reception."

"Doctor, how could I forget you?" Lady Eddison replied, smiling at him in the manner that left it hard to determine if she was embarrassed or had literally 'forgotten' them. "But one must be sure with the Unicorn on the loose."

"A unicorn?" the Doctor said with a sudden smile. "Brilliant! Where?"

"_The _Unicorn," Lady Eddison corrected, as the four of them walked over to the nearby table

"The jewel thief. And nobody knows who he is. He's just struck again; snatched Lady Babbington's pearls right from under her nose."

"Funny place to wear pearls," Donna muttered, a waiter presenting them with their previously-requested drinks.

"May I announce," the same butler who'd introduced Lady Eddison said, as an old man in a grey suit and a red waistcoat was wheeled onto the garden by a younger man in a light fawn, "the Colonel Hugh Curbishley,the Honourable Roger Curbishley."

"My husband," Lady Eddison said, leaning over to briefly touch the old man's cheek as he joined them. "And my son."

"Forgive me for not rising," the old man in the wheelchair said with a nonchalant smile (The Doctor made a mental note to check the colonel's family tree when he could; the odds of this man being related to Henry Gordon Jago were slim, but it wasn't like Jago had really shared much about his family during that mess with Magnus Greel, and that smile _was_ rather distinctive). "Never been the same ever since that flu epidemic back in '18."

"My word," Roger said, walking around to look appreciatively at Donna, "you _are_ a super lady."

"Oh, I like the cut of your jib," Donna replied, smiling broadly as she tipped her glass at him. "Chin chin."

"Hello," the Doctor said, stepping forward to shake Roger's hand. "Doctor John Noble."

"Martha Jones," Martha added, taking Roger's hand almost as the Doctor released it; she still had some questions about the Doctor's current decision regarding his alias here, but it was probably best to go along with it until further notice. "I'm his fiancé, and this is his sister Donna."

"How do you do?" Roger asked in response.

"Very well," the Doctor replied, Roger subsequently being distracted by another butler offering him a drink.

"How come she's an Eddison but her husband and son are Curbishleys?" Donna asked in a low whisper.

"The Eddison title descends through her-" the Doctor began.

"And speaking of titles," Martha asked, looking pointedly at the Doctor, "what was with that 'Doctor John Noble and his fiancé' introduction?"

"Well, it's not like I could have just said we were just _travelling _together," the Doctor pointed out with his own low whisper as he leaned in to address his two companions. "It was a bit easier when it's just two of us; three in this time frame and people start asking questions I thought you'd prefer me to stop-"

"Robina Redmond!" the old butler called out once again, the new arrival to the garden being a dark-haired young woman in a light floral-patterned dress.

"She's the absolute hit of the social scene; a must," Lady Eddison said by way of explanation to the Doctor before she walked over to the new arrival. "Miss Redmond!"

"Spiffing to meet you at last, my lady," Miss Redmond replied. "What super fun!"

"Reverend Arnold Golightly," the old butler said once again, this time introducing a young man in the traditional black coat and white collar of a priest.

"Ah, Reverend, how are you?" Lady Eddison said, smiling warmly at the new guest as she shook his hand. "I heard about the church last night; those ruffians breaking in."

"You apprehended them, I hear," the colonel put in with an approving nod.

"As the Christian Fathers taught me, we must forgive them their trespasses," the reverend said with a casual shrug. "Quite literally."

"Some of these young boys deserve a decent thrashing," Roger put in, his gaze subsequently shifting to the young waiter standing to his left.

"Couldn't agree more, sir," the waiter said, the two men exchanging a meaningful look that the Doctor and Martha instantly recognised from so much time with Captain Jack.

"Typical," Donna muttered, glancing back at her companions. "All the decent men are on the other bus."

"Or _very _taken Time Lords," Martha added, shooting Donna a brief glare before smiling at her lover, the Doctor returning the smile with one of his own before his attention was drawn back to the conversation by Roger's reference to a 'special guest'.

"Here she is," Lady Eddison said, pointing at a newly-arrived woman in a blue dress with a gold pattern on it and short blonde hair with a slight curl, satisfaction evident in Lady Eddison's voice as she spoke. "A lady who needs no introduction!"

"No, no, please, don't," the woman said, smiling slightly sheepishly as the group clapped in approval as she joined them. "Thank you, Lady Eddison; honestly, there's no need."

Smiling slightly at the guests, she turned to face the Doctor and held out her hand. "Agatha Christie."

"What about her?" Donna asked, even as the Doctor and Martha exchanged surprised smiles.

"That's me," the woman replied.

"Nooo!" Donna said, her eyes widening as she looked at the woman, Martha only able to stare in equal astonishment at this confirmation. "You're _kidding_!"

"Agatha Christie!" the Doctor said, smiling enthusiastically at the novelist as he shook her offered hand, Agatha unable to restrain a similar smile. "I was just talking about you the other day. I said, 'I bet she's brilliant'. Doctor John Noble; this is my sister Donna and my fiancé, Martha Jones. Ohhh, I love your stuff. What a mind! You fool me every time. Well, almost every time. Well, once or twice. Well, once. But it was a good once!"

"Take it as a compliment," Martha said reassuringly to Agatha even as she shot a warning glare at the Doctor. "He always like to talk about how smart he is; saying you fooled him at _all _is an achievement."

"I shall keep that in mind," Agatha said, smiling back at Martha before she took in the other two. "You three make a rather unusual group."

"I get that a lot," the Doctor said dismissively. "I always like diversity when I'm travelling, you know how it is..."

"No wedding ring for your fiancé, Doctor Noble?" Agatha asked, raising a slightly teasing eyebrow at him as Martha glanced down at her ringless fingers.

"Oh- _oh_, you don't miss a trick, do you?" the Doctor said, smiling in approval at her.

"It's more of an 'engaged to be engaged' relationship at the moment," Martha said by way of explanation. "He's proposed, but we haven't found the time to get a ring yet; it's all been a bit busy lately..."

"You might want to keep it on hold for a while, Miss Jones," Agatha said with a brief smile. "The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture."

"Mrs Christie," Lady Eddison suddenly said, walking over to interrupt the current conversation with a slightly embarrassed smile, "I'm so glad you could come. I'm one of your greatest followers; I've read all six of your books..."

As Agatha fell into conversation with their hosts, the Doctor reached over to borrow the colonel's newspaper, muttering a brief apology to the man as Martha and Donna exchanged glances at Agatha's momentary discomfort at the reference to her husband before the Doctor beckoned them over to where he sat against a table.

"What is it?" Martha asked, noting her 'fiancé's' currently thoughtful expression.

"The date of this newspaper," the Doctor answered, his voice low as he glanced briefly up at the novelist he'd enthusiastically greeted only moments ago. "It's the day Agatha Christie disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Martha repeated in surprise.

"She'd just discovered her husband was having an affair," the Doctor elaborated, his eyes still studying the woman in question as she laughed with some of the other guests at the party.

"She seems rather... cheery... about it, doesn't she?" Martha asked, looking uncertainly at Agatha.

"Well, she's British and moneyed; that's what they do, they carry on," the Doctor said, keeping his voice low as Donna and Martha moved in closer to better listen to him. "Except for this one time. No one knows exactly what happened, she just vanished. Her car will be found tomorrow morning by the side of a lake; ten days later, Agatha Christie turns up in a hotel in Harrogate, saying she'd lost her memory. She never spoke about the disappearance till the day she died, but whatever it was..."

"It's about to happen," Donna finished for the Time Lord.

"Right here, right now," the Doctor confirmed.

"Professor!" the housekeeper- Miss Chandrakala, Martha thought she'd heard her being identified as- suddenly yelled, hurrying out of the house and waving her arms in a panic. "The library! Murder! Murder!"

A brief glance was almost more than the three companions needed before they were running into the house in the direction of the earlier yell.

* * *

"Oh!" the Doctor said, smiling as he studied the toolbox that Agatha and Donna had recently discovered in the garden; given the wide assortment of small chisels, hammers, keys and files inside it, it seemed to be the first genuine clue they'd found since this mess began. "Someone came here tooled up... the sort of stuff a thief would use."

"The Unicorn?" Agatha said, looking sharply at the Doctor in revelation. "He's here!"

"A jewel thief and a killer?" Martha said, a slightly reflective smile on her face as she looked over at her boyfriend. "You always have interesting trips for us, don't you?"

"The Unicorn and the wasp..." the Doctor muttered reflectively, lost in his thoughts to the point that he didn't even seem to have heard Martha's comment, before the arrive of Greeves, the eldest of the Eddison butlers, momentary halted their conversation.

"Your drinks, ladies, Doctor," he said, holding the tray down in front of them.

"Very good, Greeves," the Doctor said, smiling briefly in thanks at the butler as they took the drink, the older man walking out of the room with his task completed.

"Talking of the case, did you find anything in your analysis?" Martha asked.

Nodding at her as he swallowed his drink, the Doctor pulled out the test tube he'd used to store the sample earlier.

"Vespiform sting," he said by way of explanation, studying the sting as it glowed in the tube. "Vespiforms have got hives in the Silfrax galaxy."

"Again, you talk like Edward Lear," Agatha said, raising her hands in amused exasperation.

"But for some reason," the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully at Agatha as he sipped at his drink, "this one's behaving like a character in one of your books."

"Come on, Agatha," Donna said, looking at the author with a prompting stare, "what would Miss Marple do? She'd have overheard something vital by now, because the murderer thinks she's just a harmless old lady."

"Clever idea..." Agatha said, looking thoughtfully ahead of herself before she turned to look at Donna. "Miss Marple? Who writes those?"

"Um..." Donna said, looking awkwardly down at the table before her, "copyright Donna Noble; add it to the list."

Martha and the Doctor could only exchange exasperated glances at this, but the Doctor's face suddenly fell before he could say anything to Donna.

"Doctor?" Martha asked, noting the sudden concern in her lover's eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Something's inhibiting my enzymes," the Doctor said, before he suddenly reeled forward in his chair, clutching at its arms as he stared urgently ahead of himself with his teeth clenched. "I've been poisoned!"

Martha's eyes widened in horror.

_Poisoned_...

Even if she knew that the Doctor would only regenerate, it wasn't exactly something she was looking forward to; she'd love the Doctor whatever he looked like, but after everything she'd seen of his other selves- both when she'd met them directly in his mind and indirectly from the stories she'd heard from his past companions during her travels-, she didn't exactly have a guarantee that he'd still love _her _if that happened...

"What do we do?" Donna asked, hurrying over to crouch down beside the Doctor as she looked up at Martha. "C'mon, Martha; what'd he say we do if this happens?"

"Bitter almonds..." Agatha's voice suddenly said, the other two women sharply spinning around to see her sniffing the Doctor's glass. "It's cyanide! Sparkling cyanide!"

As though that news had been the cue he was waiting for, the Doctor suddenly leapt out of the chair and ran- albeit in a slightly stumbling manner- out of the room, leaving the women with nothing to do but follow him as he ran towards the kitchen, catching up with him just as he was tipping a bottle of something over his head.

"I'm an expert in poisons, Doctor!" Agatha said, sounding almost hysterical- although whether from the Doctor's odd behaviour or the potential imminence of his death- as she looked at him. "There's no cure; it's fatal!"

"Normally, but the Doctor's _not _normal-!" Martha began, only to be interrupted as the Doctor spat out the liquid he'd apparently drunk earlier.

"Exactly!" he said, smiling briefly at her despite his still-urgent expression and the fearful confusion of the staff, now hiding on the other side of the worktop from the group. "I can stimulate the inhibited enzymes into reversal... Protein! I need protein!"

Despite Agatha's evident scepticism of the Doctor's last claim, she joined Donna and Martha in searching the kitchen supplies, Martha's eyes immediately falling on a likely-looking jar.

"Walnuts?" she asked, handing the jar in question over to him.

"Brilliant!" the Doctor said, shooting her another brief smile before he grabbed the jar and gobbled the contents down, subsequently tossing it aside as he began to shake his hand up and down.

"I can't understand you!" Donna said, looking at him in confusion. "How many words?"

"_Salt_!" Martha yelled as the Doctor held up one finger; pepper might have been another option, but the effects of salt on the body were more obvious, which made it the more likely candidate. As the Doctor pointed at her in confirmation, Donna reached over to grab a brown bag and pass it to the Doctor, only for him to glance inside it and then put it down as he continued to urgently wave his hand.

"What was that?" Martha asked, looking at Donna in confusion.

"Salt, of course!" Donna replied in frustration. "What _else _would I give 'im after-?"

"It's too salty!" the Doctor continued, finally apparently swallowing the walnuts.

"What about this?" Agatha asked, passing him another jar which the Doctor only consulted for a split-second before he opened it and tossed the contents down his throat once more.

"What's that?" Martha asked.

"Anchovies," Agatha replied, only for the Doctor to start gesturing once again, his hands facing outwards with the fingers outstretched.

"OK, so this time you need... what, _ten _of something?" Martha asked, privately wondering how much longer this was going to take; even with the Doctor's physiology, surely he could only stand arsenic in his system for so long...

"It's a... song?" Donna asked, voicing her own opinion of what was taking place before her. "Uh... I don't know... Camptown Races?"

"_Camptown Races_?" the Doctor repeated, swallowing the anchovies and looking incredulously at Donna.

"Look, we'll worry about your charades skills later; what _do _you need?" Martha asked urgently.

"It's a shock!" the Doctor yelled, his body almost shaking as he looked urgently between them, still waving his hands. "Look! Shock! I need a shock!"

"Right then," Donna said resolutely as the Doctor bent over to gasp for breath. "Big shock, coming up!"

With that, she grabbed the Doctor's shoulders, pushed him so that he was standing up in front of her, and then pulled him down to kiss him directly on the lips, the Doctor momentarily unable to do anything more than follow Donna as she pulled them both back towards the counter behind her before she released the Time Lord. As soon as he was free again, the Doctor stumbled back to the counter that he'd been leaning against earlier, his eyes wide with shock as he threw his head back and exhaled a cloud of grey smoke.

As the rest of the people in the room could only stare in shock and confusion at the recent actions of the man before them, the Doctor took a few deep breaths as he rested against the counter before he stepped away from it, a broad smile on his face despite his recent near-death experience.

"Detox!" the Doctor said, wiping his mouth as he took another few deep breathes through his broadly-smiling mouth. "I must do that more often!"

Then his eyes widened as he noted the pointed stares on Donna and Martha's face. "I meant the detox- very refreshing once you know you aren't going to die; it purges everything even _slightly _toxic from your body, not just the poison-, and you _know _I love you, Martha-!"

"Doctor," Agatha said, looking at him in clearly-shaken disbelief, her body slightly trembling as she kept her gaze fixed on him as though waiting for him to disappear or collapse, "you are _impossible_! Who are you?"

"Long story," the Doctor said briefly, smiling over at Agatha with an apologetic shrug and a wink before he headed for the house. "Come on, Agatha; we've got new evidence to think about!"

Clearly stuck for anything else to do after recent events, Agatha walked hurriedly after the Doctor, leaving Donna and Martha to exchange an awkward and pointed glance respectively before they walked out after their associates at a slightly slower place.

"So," Martha said, looking at Donna with the same pointed stare she'd originally assumed in the kitchen, "care to explain what you thought you were doing kissing _my _boyfriend?"

"What?" Donna asked, looking over at Martha with a genuinely hurt expression. "Look, I'm sorry, but _you _kissing him wasn't going to shock 'im; I had to try _something_-!"

"Relax," Martha said, holding up a reassuring hand as she smiled at her fellow companion. "I get why you did it, and I appreciate it; if anything had..."

The smile faded as she contemplated what might have happened if Donna hadn't taken the action she'd taken at the time, but she pushed that thought aside with equal pace; this wasn't the time to dwell on that kind of thing.

No matter how much the thought of the Doctor regenerating might simultaneously scare and comfort Martha- it might not be easy for the Doctor to be permanently killed, but that didn't mean she didn't sometimes worry about losing the Doctor who loved her if he regenerated-, it wasn't something she had to worry about now, and doing so wouldn't get anything done; right now they still had a murder to solve...

* * *

Even with her pre-existing future knowledge of Agatha's writing career, Martha couldn't help but be impressed at what the Doctor had just revealed to them; just the idea that Agatha Christie's books, even with their own author's low opinion of them, would continue to be published _that _far into the future...

It was times like this that she really appreciated her time with the Doctor; there was something so incredible in learning about what would remain significant in the future from her own time.

"Just out of curiosity, met any other interesting writers?" Donna asked, smiling curiously at the Doctor as she paused in her brief perusal of the Doctor's collection of Christie's works. "I mean, Agatha was great, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't mind knowing who else you've run into..."

"Well... your comment about Dickens earlier?" the Doctor said, looking over at Donna with a brief smile. "I actually _did _meet him surrounded by ghosts once."

"Oh, come _on_..." Donna began, only for her eyes to widen at the slight smile on the Doctor's face, her current experience with the Time Lord all she needed to realise what he meant by that. "You're _serious_?"

"Well, they weren't _ghosts_, per se- they were extra-dimensional entities who manifested a partially physical but intangible form on Earth in 1869-, but they met most of the criteria for ghosthood, so it's pretty much the same thing," the Doctor said with a casual shrug. "Oh, and another time I helped Arthur Conan Doyle solve the mystery of a bunch of mermaids, and don't get me started on the time I had to work with Sherlock Holmes to stop his brother leading a telepathic slug in an invasion of Earth after it made the eldest Holmes think it was a god..."

He trailed off as he took in Donna and Martha's incredulous stares. "What?"

"You... you _met _Sherlock Holmes?" Donna said, looking at him incredulously.

"Again, he wasn't actually _called _'Sherlock Holmes'- it's just an alias that Doyle and Watson gave them when Doyle published Watson's memoirs to avoid attracting excessive attention to themselves-, but yeah, I worked with him; not a bad chap, if a bit out of depth the first trip we took," the Doctor said, looking upwards with a slightly wistful smile. "Of course, that time I ended up inspiring the wooden horse was more historically interesting, but-"

"Wait a minute; the _wooden horse_?" Martha asked, holding up a hand to halt him from going any further. "As in the _Trojan _Horse? You _created _it?"

"Just gave Odysseyus the idea to build it, really, and that was only because he was threatening me..." the Doctor said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at his two companions. "As I said, it was more historically interesting, but I preferred my meetings with Winston Churchill; he might have been a bit keen on the TARDIS key, but that aside he's a decent enough chap..."

As the Doctor and his companions fell into conversation about his various past meetings with historical figures, Donna and Martha both showing a keen interest in learning how else the Doctor had met during his adventures in history- although he made a mental note not to bring up Reinette; that would _definitely _have started some difficult 'talks' with Martha-, the Time Lord couldn't help but enjoy the brief chance at relaxation after the difficulties of the mystery of the last few hours.

It hadn't been the most stressful experience he'd ever had, of course, but it still hadn't been the relaxing holiday they'd set out for either; sometimes, even he enjoyed the chance to go somewhere and just talk with his friends (And girlfriend, he reminded himself) without worrying about even the _possibility _of something else coming up...

If it hadn't been for the sudden heat being generated by the psychic paper in his pocket just as he was telling the two women about his trip to the _Titanic _during that mess with Huitzilin- it might have been personally difficult, but the ship _had _been an excellent example of engineering and design-, he might have tried to find a good leisure planet in the TARDIS databanks where they could get the rest they'd been looking for; as it was, he just hoped that, whoever or whatever had sent him this message, it wasn't about anything _too _serious...


	13. Higher Attention

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Another 'villain interlude', which includes the group leader getting an unexpected ally in his quest to vanquish the Doctor; if you want a hint as to his identity, see if you can catch the reference to another, more recent enemy in his words...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As he looked out at the small group that he had assembled so far, the three men working away diligently at the machinery that they would require to launch their newest assault on the man who had destroyed everything that they were, the man who served as the coordinator of their unorthodox 'team' couldn't help but smile.

It was a dangerous risk bringing so many strong-willed personalities together, of course- their arrogance and lust for power had lead them to endanger entire universes on their own; bringing them together like this could result in the complete destruction of themselves or their enemies-, but the stakes involved in the central plan were high enough that he should be able to control them so long as he made it clear that they could not complete the plan without him.

They might possess the skills to pull it off, but he was the only one of them with a true chance of outwitting the Doctor...

"You are progressing well, I see," a voice said from behind the man, prompting him to look around as his associates stopped what they were doing to do the same. For a moment the thought of someone else being aware of their location aside from their prisoner and their associated 'servants' (Even if all four of them were keenly aware that they were playing a particularly delicate 'game' with their current associates; their power was impressive, but their ability to work with others could only last so long) was enough to prompt a brief but urgent panic from the coordinator, but then he took in the new arrival and allowed himself to relax slightly.

"You?" he said, looking at the new arrival with an ambiguous smile; having someone _this _powerful return to his life like this hadn't exactly been anticipated, but the potential benefits if he was there to help them were bonuses that he definitely couldn't ignore. "_You _would help us?"

"The possibilities that will be opened up if you should succeed will be very... interesting... to me," the man before him said with a slight but significant smile, clearly unconcerned about the identities and capabilities of the people currently in front of him. "Obviously, I cannot become involved myself without attracting... unwanted attention, but I have certain... agents... in my pantheon who would be willing and able to arrange for you to gain some... additional assistance in your plan of attack."

"What kind of 'assistance' would we be talking about here?" the team's first recruit asked, looking pointedly at the man before him; evidently, despite the fact that he almost certainly knew who he was looking at, he was unwilling to accept further additions to their team without knowing what they would bring to the table.

"Simply put, two of the most arrogant and self-assured human beings that our mutual adversary has ever fought," the new arrival replied, smiling slightly as he shifted his gaze to the group's most recent member. "Actually, I believe that you may know one of them from your records; he was involved in a particularly elaborate plan involving the development of an ultimate weapon before the Doctor delayed the device's completion..."

"Intriguing," the man said, his voice as twisted as his body, nodding reflectively. "I believe I know the man you refer to; shall I assume that we will... conceal his final fate from him?"

"Naturally," the leader replied. "With his arrogance, we can simply inform him that you were under observation during the events leading up to his death and wished to arrange to transport him to a location where he could take a more... direct role in the situation; he would doubtless fill in the blanks himself from that point onwards."

"And the other?" the group's first recruit asked.

"Essentially, the most brilliant idiot in human history," the figure said with a grim smile. "I trust that will be sufficient?"

"_More _than sufficient, I assure you," the leader said with a confirming nod, his eyes flicking over to another door in the control room. "With the... information... I have acquired from our recent captive, I feel that we have all the tools necessary to launch our first assault upon our particular foes."

The man held prisoner behind the door might have been relatively easily fooled, but he was still far from stupid; with his information available to them, their chances of victory were virtually assured.

The captive hadn't exactly been easy to find, of course, and his mental state was far from stable- he'd endured a great deal before they'd found him, and he was still far from being a well man in any sense of the word-, but the information he'd provided them in creating their more recent weapons for their assault on the Doctor would _definitely _prove invulnerable.

_After all_, he mused reflectively, glancing over at the door where his other prisoners were kept before he turned his attention back to his associates, _if we all nearly defeated the Doctor working on our own, the chances of victory as a team are virtually certain_.

All he required now was to move his players into position before he went after the last piece he required to complete their machinery...

"And for a battlefield..." he added, turning back to look at his newest partner as he activated a nearby screen, "might I suggest... _this _planet?"

It was a relatively insignificant world, to be sure, but after all the attention and care that the Doctor had paid to it over his lives, it would be foolish _not _to exploit his affection for it...


	14. Silence in the LibraryForest of the Dead

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" are here, and I warn you all in advance, there will be some SLIGHT River-bashing (I'll try not to overdo it, but I just do _not _like that woman; she's too arrogant- all that talk about 'spoilers' while nevertheless casually sharing details without even TRYING to confirm whether she's met a Doctor who already knows who she is-, and she kills far too easily)

AN 2: Thanks to Haleine Delail, who gave me permission to use some elements of her story "Not Better, Just Different" in this rewrite

AN 3: Bonus points to anyone who recognises the writer the Doctor quotes later on

AN 4: Updated on 10 October 2011 to accommodate both recent discoveries about River's past and my own plans for this series' future

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Looking sceptically at the group of people before him, the Doctor couldn't help but wonder why it was that this kind of thing always ended up happening to him. Whenever he arrived somewhere that gave every sign that it had been abandoned- and most of those times what he found out suggested that it had been abandoned for a _very _good reason- there was always somebody who'd shown up at _just _the right time to potentially activate/restart/insert-other-relevant-term-here whatever had caused the original problem...

Admittedly, he already had a fairly clear of what was _causing _the problem, but that just made it all the more urgent that he solve it on his own; right now, the more people who came here, the more people he had to try and keep safe, and he had _more _than enough on his plate with trying to work out who had sent him that slightly flirtatious message via the psychic paper without making Martha jealous...

"Hello, handsome," one of the new arrivals said to him, her tinted visor fading to reveal a woman with a slight smile on her face.

"Get out," the Doctor said in response, ignoring the slight stare he received from Martha at the woman's name for him- if he didn't register it, maybe Martha would leave it alone, given that he had no answer to give her anyway- as he walked past the woman to address the rest of the new arrivals as they gathered around the hall, pointing sharply at the door they had just entered by. "All of you, turn around, get back in your rocket and fly away! Tell your grandchildren you came to the Library and lived; they won't believe you."

"Pop your helmets, everyone; we've got breathers," the woman said, none of them apparently concerned about the Doctor's words as they obeyed her instructions, the woman's now-exposed head revealing blonde curls and distinctive green eyes.

"Who is this?" one of the other figures- an older, balding man who appeared to be slightly overweight- said, walking up to the first woman. "You said we were the only expedition; I paid for exclusives."

"I lied," the woman said nonchalantly. "I'm always lying; bound to be others."

"Miss Evangelista," the man said, turning away from the first woman and addressing another woman with pale skin, long dark hair and a seemingly perpetually stunned expression on her face, "I want to see the contracts."

"You came through the north door, yeah?" the woman said, as the dark-haired woman hurried over to a nearby desk. "How was that; much damage?"

"Please, just leave," the Doctor said, his hands on his hips as he looked at the woman. "I'm asking you seriously and properly, just lea..."

His voice trailed off as he processed what he'd just heard. "Hang on; did you say 'expedition'?"

"My expedition," the first man said (In the absence of names, the Doctor had to think of him as 'the balding man', given that the other two now-helmetless men had fuller heads of hair), glaring at the woman as he adjusted his gloves. "I funded it!"

"Oh, you're not, are you?" the Doctor said, rolling his eyes as he looked at the new arrivals in exasperation. "_Tell_ me you're not archaeologists..."

"Not your favourite people, right?" Martha asked, looking at the Doctor with a brief smile.

"Archaeology?" the Doctor said, looking over at Martha with a shrug. "Not a bad science in principle, but as I once said to Fitz, archaeological digs are boring and require the wearing of mittens; I point and _laugh_ at archaeologists!"

"Really?" the woman said, walking over to him with a teasing smile. "Professor River Song, archaeologist."

"Right, River Song- interesting if slightly odd name, and speaking as the man who met a centipedial alien called Queegvogel Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Seven, that's saying a lot-, as you're leaving- which should be _now_-, you need to set up a quarantine beacon," the Doctor said, walking River back towards the door. "Code-wall the planet, the whole planet. Nobody comes here, not ever again... not one living thing, not here, not ever- _stop right there_!" he yelled, as one of the expedition came too close to one of the shadows. "What's your name?"

"Anita," the woman replied, clearly confused about the reason for the Doctor's question as the Time Lord grabbed her by the shoulders and virtually dragged her back towards the rest of the group.

"Anita, stay out of the shadows," the Doctor said, looking intently at her. "Not a foot, not a finger in the shadows till you're safely back in your ship. Goes for all of you. Stay in the light. Find a nice, bright spot and just stand. If you understand me, look very, very scared."

Looking at the people before her, Martha wasn't sure if she should feel disappointed or amused at the relative lack of reaction; the Doctor was definitely serious about whatever threat they were dealing with, but it was hard to take him totally seriously when they didn't _know _what they were up against...

"No, bit more scared than that," the Doctor said after a brief pause, only for his second glance around the room to reveal only a slight twitch of fear on the face of the woman who had been identified earlier as 'Miss Evangelista'.

"OK, do for now," the Doctor said, walking through the small group towards the door, speaking to a dark-skinned man with a thick head of hair that put Martha in mind of the Doctor when he'd worn a long scarf, "you- who are you?"

"Uh... Dave..." the man said.

"OK, Dave-" the Doctor began.

"Uh, well, Other Dave," the man clarified, indicating one of the other members of the expedition with what looked to Martha like a radio antenna, "because that's Proper Dave the pilot, he was the first Dave, so when we-"

"Other Dave," the Doctor said, waving that topic of conversation aside as he took the man up to the door the expedition had entered by, "the way you came, does it look the same as before?"

"Yeah," Other Dave (Martha already knew she'd dislike that way of distinguishing the two Daves; she'd had enough trouble thinking of the Doctor's past selves as their 'numbers', never mind thinking of someone as 'other' just because he'd arrived later) said, before he seemed to start slightly in surprise. "Oh, it's a bit darker."

"How much darker?" the Doctor asked, his voice low as he addressed the man.

"Oh, like I could see where we came through just like a moment ago," Other Dave said, indicating the path with his 'antenna'. "I can't now."

"Seal up this door," the Doctor said, turning around and walking back to the rest of the group. "We'll find another way out."

"We're not looking for a way out," Mr Lux said resolutely as he passed a clipboard to the dark-haired woman. "Miss Evangelista?"

"I'm Mr Lux's personal... everything," Miss Evangelista said, stepping forward to address the Doctor, Martha and Donna as she held out a plastic clipboard. "You need to sign these contracts, agreeing that your individual experiences inside the Library are the intellectual property of the Felman Lux Corporation."

"Well, I'll take those, thanks," Martha said, taking all three contracts from the woman and promptly ripping them in half, shooting a nonchalant smile over at the Doctor before she looked back at Miss Evangelista. "Sorry, but we don't really do contracts like that; our experiences are our own."

"Quite right, too," the Doctor said, smiling in approval over at her.

"My family built this Library," Mr Lux protested, walking up to address the three directly. "I have _rights_-!"

"You have a mouth that won't stop," River put in, her gaze shifting to the Doctor as Mr Lux glared at her. "You think there's danger here?"

"After something came to this Library and killed everyone on an entire _planet_?" Martha pointed out. "I _think _it's safe to assume it's dangerous!"

"That was a hundred years ago," River said dismissively. "The Library's been silent for a _hundred years_; whatever came here is long dead."

"Bet your life?" the Doctor asked.

"Always," River said, a broad smile on her face that the Doctor disliked on principle.

It wasn't that he didn't admire confidence- it was a trait he himself possessed to a certain extent in all his lives-, but after he'd had time to reflect on his attitude in his sixth incarnation, he'd come to recognise the dangers of the line between confidence and arrogance, and River so far struck him as a woman who was worryingly on the wrong side of that line; it was as though she felt that nothing could happen to her because she was _her_, rather than being confident that she could find a way to deal with whatever might be about to happen with the skills and resources available to her.

"What are you doing?" Mr Lux asked, walking past the group to where 'Other Dave' had closed the door they'd just entered by and had begun applying screws to hold it in place.

"He said seal the door," Other Dave replied uncertainly.

"You're taking orders from him?" Mr Luz said, waving a hand incredulously before the Doctor walked over and promptly yanked the torch out of the other man's hand.

"Spooky, isn't it?" he said, ignoring Mr Lux as he turned the torch on and quickly took in the room around him, the torch shining into the room's darker corners.

"Always every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark," he explained as he studied their surroundings, Donna and Martha walking over to join him as he stared down one of the corridors. "But they're wrong... 'cause it's not irrational. It's Vashta Nerada."

"It's what?" Martha asked, looking uncertainly at him, clearly puzzled at this sudden new twist in the conversation.

"It's what's in the dark," the Doctor replied, his gaze fixed intently on the corridor. "It's what's always in the dark..."

With that, he turned around and faced the group once again, evidently having now reached a decision.

"Lights!" he said, casually tossing the torch back to Mr Lux. "That's what we need; lights! You got lights?"

"What for?" River asked.

"Form a circle, safe area, big as you can, lights pointing out," the Doctor said, standing in the middle of the room's floor as he indicated the stone pattern under his feet.

"Oi!" River yelled, walking over to Anita as she shrugged a bag off her shoulders. "Do as he says!"

"You're not listening to this man?" Mr Lux yelled incredulously at the woman.

"Apparently, I am," River replied, before she began to turn to address the rest of the people in the room. "Anita, unpack the lights. Other Dave, make sure the door's secure, then help Anita. Mr. Lux, put your helmet back on, block the visor. Proper Dave, find an active terminal. I want you to access the Library database, see what you can find about what happened here a hundred years ago."

"And you," River added, turning to look at the Doctor with a stare of exasperated fondness that put Martha in mind of her own old attitude with the Doctor when he was so caught up in something that he didn't seem to notice her own feelings about what had just happened, "you thick, thick, _thick _genius... you're with me; we can talk in my office."

Donna and Martha exchanged uncertain glances with each other as River walked over to an information terminal, looking slightly impatiently back at the Doctor as she did so, before they reached a silent consensus.

"Uh... Doctor?" Donna said, walking over to where the Time Lord was crouching down to examine the floor. "The professor wants a word with you."

"Really?" the Doctor said, looking up at her in surprise.

"She said she wanted the 'thick genius'; you in a nutshell," Donna clarified, a slight smile on her face at the Time Lord's confusion.

"Thick?" the Doctor repeated, standing up to look at Martha incredulously. "She called me 'thick'?"

"Well, you _do _tend to miss the obvious sometimes..." Martha said, the teasing smile on her face concealing the slight pain at the memory those words invoked before she indicated the terminal. "Look, just go to her; she might have something important to tell you."

"Right..." the Doctor said, standing up and walking across the hall towards River's 'desk', addressing the rest of the group as he did so. "Don't let your shadows cross! Seriously, don't even let them touch; any of them could be infected!"

As he walked around the desk, the Doctor briefly registered that Martha and Donna had begun talking with Miss Evangelista- the only member of the group who hadn't just been given a task- about something, but he didn't have the time to try and listen to it; if it became relevant, he'd ask later, but with the current apparent infestation he didn't have time to split his focus like that.

"Thanks," River said, drawing the Doctor's attention back to her.

"For what?" the Doctor asked, looking in confusion at the archaeologist.

"Coming when I called," River replied, as though it was obvious.

"That was you?" the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows in surprise; humans might be capable of remarkable things, but the mental power necessary to send a message to the psychic paper like that was _definitely _out of the ordinary...

"OK, you're starting to overdo it, aren't you?" River said, smiling slightly at him with just a slight trace of apprehension in her eyes.

"Overdo what?" the Doctor asked, slipping his glasses on as he looked at her; something told him that the more professional he looked right now the better it might be with that 'Mr Lux'...

"The whole 'not knowing me' thing," River answered with a slight smile. "I assume there's a reason for it?"

"Uh... yeah, there is," he replied, deciding he might as well give her an honest answer to try and conceal his confusion. "A very good one, actually..."

"OK then," River said, pulling a small blue book out of her bag and starting to flick through the pages with a slight smile, "where are we? I'm guessing early, but... crash of the Byzantium ringing any bells? Stonehenge? Asg-"

"Hold it right there; who _are _you?" the Doctor interjected, looking pointedly at her; given the appearance of the book's covers, he had some ideas about where this strange woman before him was going with her current line of inquiry, but he wasn't about to give her an excuse to say any more. "You can't just go telling me about this; I had enough of this whole mess when I met Nyssa and Mel before I met them..."

He trailed off as he registered the expression on River's face, his mind flashing back to the moments when he'd seen that same look of pain on Martha's face when she'd overheard John Smith discussing his Journal with Joan...

"Who... who were they?" River asked, looking at him in confusion.

"Oh, just a couple of old... friends of mine," the Doctor said, stopping himself from saying anything further; he didn't want to give away too much of his past to a woman he'd only just met, no matter what suspicions he might have about her history. "Anyway, that's not important; what's _important _is-"

"You're... _young_," River whispered, leaning over to look at him with a suddenly slightly tearful expression.

"I'm, uh, really not _that _young, you know..." the Doctor said, uncomfortably shuffling back a few inches from the woman in front of him; he didn't want to be blatantly rude, but given his admittedly fragile understanding of human emotional interaction in this body at times he didn't want to do anything to give Martha or this woman the wrong impression...

"But you are," River whispered, leaning over with a slight smile on her face despite the still-faint-but-nevertheless-present hint of tears. "Your eyes... you're younger than I've ever seen you."

"You've seen me before, then?" the Doctor asked, leaning slightly further back to neatly avoid River's hand as it reached for his face; this woman was _definitely _getting too close for comfort...

"Doctor, _please _tell me you know who I am," River said, looking slightly desperately at him.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked.

River sighed.

"_Typical_..." she groaned, lowering her hand as her shoulders slumped back down, continuing to stare at him. "Just when I thought-"

The sound of an alarm suddenly blaring stopped the Doctor learning what River had thought, forcing his focus back to the present as he quickly glanced around the room, taking immediate stock of everyone's location in case they had done something he'd missed while he was distracted...

* * *

With the group still slightly reeling from the death of Miss Evangelista- Martha wasn't sure how to cope with this, the idea of something so dangerous that the Doctor wouldn't even _try _to fight it was something she'd never thought she'd experience-, they were left with relatively limited choices about their next course of action. As the expedition stood anxiously in the illuminated area of the reading room where they'd met earlier, the Doctor was currently scanning the surrounding corridors with the sonic screwdriver- although he'd yet to tell them what he was scanning for-, leaving Martha and Donna to exchange uncomfortable glances with the others while wondering what the Doctor was going to do next.

"So... you travel with him?" a voice said, prompting Martha and Donna to glance back at the strange woman who'd introduced herself as River Song. "Both of you?"

"Yep," Donna said, smiling slightly at the other woman. "Well, _I _travel with him; she, on the other hand..."

As Donna glanced slightly teasingly in her direction, Martha could only sigh.

"You'll never get tired of that, will you?" she said, rolling her eyes even as she looked sympathetically over at River; how was it that, even after the mess he'd nearly made of things with her over his old feelings for Rose, the Doctor could go and make the same mistake again in his future with this woman?

It wasn't like Martha was going to _encourage _the Doctor to move on after her death- that kind of issue was something she'd prefer not to think about; if she thought about the future, she preferred to focus more on the fact that the Doctor would stay in relatively good shape for the duration of their relationship rather than on what would happen to _her _in the end-, but the knowledge that this woman had been where she had been before the 'Year That Never Was'...

"Tired of what?" River asked, looking slightly apprehensively between the other two women, as though she guessed what they were talking about but didn't want to actually say anything in case she was wrong.

"Never mind," Martha said, as she looked back at River. "So... you'll know him? In his future, I mean..."

"Oh, do I know him..." River said, sighing slightly wistfully even as she smiled briefly at Martha, clearly grateful that her troubles had been understood by someone. "We go way back, that man and me... just not _this _far back."

"I'm sorry, what?" Donna asked, looking between the other two.

"He hasn't met me yet," River clarified, her gaze fixed sadly on the Doctor. "He kept telling me to take care, but I always got him when he knew me when I asked him for help before... I thought I didn't _need _to worry about that any more... and if I was smart, maybe I could tell him not to do it now- tell him where to go and where not to go so I'd never get myself caught up in everything he brought-, but even without... what I _wanted _to happen..."

She sighed briefly, barely holding back a sound that seemed more like a sod as she did so. "I wouldn't change what we _did _have for anything..."

Martha could only nod sympathetically at that last statement of River's; how often had she contemplated leaving the Doctor in their early days together, only to be drawn back by the thrill and wonder of the universe of awe that his presence had opened up to her.

"And I _know _it shouldn't kill me that he still looks through me- that at least he's got a good _reason _for doing it this time-, but..." River began, before sighing and shaking her head. "It all just gets to you..."

"I know what you mean," Martha said, trying slightly uncomfortably to reassure the other woman. "I was there myself once, but..."

"Martha!" the Doctor called over to her, turning back to glance at her with that teasing, eager smile she had always loved, even as the sonic screwdriver continued to buzz away as he scanned the area before him. "What happened to 'keeping the private life private', mmm?"

"Sorry, Doctor," Martha called back, allowing herself a slightly self-depreciating smile at her boyfriend's comment- he did make a valid point; after all the times she had to stop him talking a bit too much about their relationship she couldn't be blamed if he felt like stopping her doing the same-, before she turned back to look at River, only to be surprised by the renewed intensity in the professor's stare.

"Martha?" River said, looking pointedly at her as she took in the name. "As in, Martha _Jones_?"

"Uh... yeah," Martha said, nodding uncertainly at River, whose eyes had suddenly narrowed as she looked at her.

"Martha _bloody _Jones..." River said, shaking her head as she stared at the other woman. "You know, you set a _ridiculous _standard after he lost you."

"Y'what?" Donna asked, looking at the woman in confusion.

"Uh... what do you mean?" Martha asked, uncertainly looking between River and the Doctor. "You mean... in the future, you..."

"Let me stop you right there; I _travelled _with him," River finished for Martha, shaking her head as she looked at the young doctor with a sudden intense glare that put Martha uncomfortably in mind of Rose's stare during their brief 'conversation' when the other woman was taking her up to the _Valiant_. "Oh, I knew him... and I... _you know_... for him... but you _had _to know him _first_, didn't you?"

"Uh... so?" Donna asked, shrugging uncomfortably. "He knew me before he knew Martha; doesn't mean he's _closer _to me than he is to her..."

"Oh, it wasn't just that; you were there for him in a way he'd _never _let me be," River practically spat as she walked up to stand in front of Martha, still intently glaring at the other woman. "I would have done _anything _for him... I took _so _many risks for him... and in the end, he shared more about himself with Amelia Pond than he did with me, and she didn't even _care _about what happened-!"

"Enough of the spoilers; we've got a live one!" the Doctor suddenly called out, standing up from the ground and turning to address the group. "That's not darkness down those tunnels, and this is not a shadow; it's a swarm."

With that, he leaned over and picked up what looked to Martha like a lunch box of some kind, filled with lettuce leaves and some chicken, and crouched down once again.

"A man-eating swarm," he finished, throwing a chicken leg from the box into the shadows; even as the others watched, the meat on the bone was suddenly stripped of all its flesh, the bone of the leg the only thing to hit the ground.

"The piranhas of the air," the Doctor said grimly, as Martha and Donna crouched down on either side of him, neither one particularly keen on hearing River continue her miniature 'rant' in case it went too far. "The Vashta Nerada; literally 'the shadows that melt the flesh'. Most planets have them, but usually in small clusters. I've never seen an infestation on this scale, or this aggressive."

"Hold on; _most _planets?" Martha asked, looking at the Doctor incredulously. "As in, these things are on _Earth_?"

"Earth and a billion other worlds; where there's meat, there's Vashta Nerada," the Doctor confirmed with a nod as he turned back to look at them. "You can see them sometimes, if you look; they hide among the dust in sunbeams."

"But... if they eat like _that_..." Martha said, clearly trying not to think about the resulting mental image of what had happened to the chicken leg happening to a person (One thing the Doctor loved about her; even after the horrors of the Year That Never Was, she hadn't allowed herself to become _hardened _to the idea of death).

"If they were on Earth, we'd know," Donna said resolutely.

"Nah, normally they live on road kill," the Doctor shrugged, his voice lowering to a whisper as he continued to speak; he never liked dispelling people's pre-conceived ideas like this, but it was necessary to make sure Donna understood the scale of what they were facing. "But sometimes people go missing; not everyone comes back out of the dark..."

"Every shadow?" River asked, her voice trembling slightly as she held a torch in front of her to look down another corridor.

"No... but _any _shadow," the Doctor clarified; there was no point over-exaggerating the danger, even if there was no way to distinguish between shadows.

"So... what do we do?" River asked.

"Daleks; aim for the eyestalk," the Doctor replied briefly, looking reflectively ahead of himself as he spoke. "Sontarans; back of the neck. Vashta Nerada..."

He shook his head slightly, a grim expression on his face as he turned around to look at River. "Run. Just... run."

"Run?" River asked. "Run where?"

Martha had to admit, from where she was standing River _had _just made a good point; with the door that the expedition had entered by locked, their options for somewhere to hide at this point were _very _limited...

* * *

The Doctor almost hated to use the term 'brilliant' for anything that involved putting the kind of strain on a child that Mr Lux's ancestor had used for creating CAL- sticking people in a computer like this wasn't much of a life; how was that little girl meant to enjoy any kind of existence permanently stuck in a computer?-, but he couldn't fault CAL's intentions; if she'd done nothing, _everyone _would have died, but at least this way she'd been able to keep _some _people alive, even when faced with such an unexpected attack as living shadows from a book.

"So, what do we do?" River asked, as they stared up at the Library's central computer, rapidly ticking down towards a breakdown as it lost the ability to cope with the burden it had taken upon itself in a desperate attempt to save lives...

"Autodestruct in ten minutes," CAL's voice said (The Doctor wasn't sure if he should be grateful that he was on a time limit or not; his mind always worked faster when he was faced with the need for last-minute solutions, but on the other hand that significantly raised the stakes of the current situation when they were already difficult enough, given that Donna and Martha were in there).

"Easy!" the Doctor said, hurrying away from the main data core and turning his attention back to the terminal they'd been studying earlier. "We beam all the people out of the data core, the computer will reset and stop the countdown. Difficult, Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer..."

Before he could follow that line of thought to its negative conclusion, another occurred to him; when there was no space available to CAL, he would _give_ hersome.

"Easy!" he added, hurrying over to a panel in the wall and pulling out the cables within it, trying not to consider the implications of what he was about to attempt; hesitation could kill people right now. "I'll hook myself up..."

The Doctor's voice trailed off even as he spoke, a sudden itch in the back of his mind giving him the impression that he'd missed something; with Donna and Martha having both having been apparently downloaded into CAL when he tried to send them back to the TARDIS, coupled with his recent revelation about how the Vastha Nerada had actually come to the Library in the first place, he had _more _than enough to be keeping his mind occupied right now- particularly how many Vashta Nerada could actually be _on _this planet if they'd hatched from the books-, but he should be able to think of something as important as his subconscious was trying to tell him what he was forgetting was-

Then it hit him.

When he'd seen River's sonic screwdriver, he'd been struck by the strangeness of it- he'd given Martha a sonic screwdriver for her birthday, and he'd left a sonic lipstick for Sarah Jane when he'd left her the replacement K9, but this woman wasn't striking him as the kind of person he'd do that for normally-, but a comment Martha had made about him needing to work on his people skills before she'd teleported away had prompted him to keep quiet about that particular matter; saying that he wouldn'thave given _her_ a sonic screwdriver after advice like that was the kind of tactlessness he'd hoped to put behind himself four bodies back.

In the end, the real problem wasn't that he'd given her the sonic screwdriver; it was the fact that he'd given her such a _bulky _one. Even assuming it was a future version of his current screwdriver, that version River possessed had far too many components and attachments around it for it to be really effective; he'd need to have given that thing so many additional settings for it to be that shape that it was unlikely that a human could even keep track of them all...

"Just a minute..." he said, turning around and walking over to River, taking her sonic screwdriver out of the pocket she'd put it in earlier.

"What?" River asked, looking at him in confusion as he studied the device. "What is it?"

"Why would I give you this?" the Doctor said, talking half to himself as he studied it; the two of them hadn't had the time to straighten that issue out earlier, given that he'd been more focused on finding answers about what had happened to Martha and Donna rather than wondering about a little thing like River's anomalous possession of the sonic screwdriver. "I know you're coming here, I know what you're going to be dealing with, I _know _what's at stake, and the only thing I give you is a sonic screwdriver; _why_?"

"It was just a present..." River said, sounding partly like she was trying to convince herself more than the Doctor. "You said I might be able to use it..."

"No, a _present _from me would be an interesting bit of artwork or some rare thing from another planet; _this_ is a _tool_, which- given that I doubt I'd set up a coincidence to tease myself with in a crisis like this- I gave to you for a _specific _purpose," the Doctor explained, his eyes flicking from the screwdriver to the computer. "We've got a computer system with insufficient memory space to complete a massive operation down _here_, we have one of the most elaborate semi-sentient operating systems in the universe up _there_, and we have _this_!"

"There is no 'operating system' of that size up there-!" Mr Lux began.

"Nope, there is; the one in my ship!" the Doctor said, smiling over at the other man with an eager grin, brandishing the sonic screwdriver in front of him as he studied the computers before him, his eyes falling on a small hole that was almost certainly a data insertion socket just the right size for the screwdriver he now held in his hand. "What we have here is your typical multi-adaptive computer system, and what _I _have _here _is a sonic screwdriver equipped with a remote wireless link-up to the processing systems used by my ship to calculate _highly _complicated journeys on a _very _regular basis; all I need to do is plug this into the Library's CPU, establish the remote link, and then I can use the TARDIS's own processing power to fill in the blanks that CAL can't manage on her own!"

"But-" River began.

"To quote a certain writer of far-fetched fiction, 'but me no buts'; I have a plan and it _will _work," the Doctor said, turning to look urgently at River. "Now then, you and Luxy-boy, back up to the main Library, prime any data cells you can find for maximum download, and before you say anything else, Professor, can I just mention in passing as you're here, shut up!"

"I _really _hate you sometimes!" River yelled as the Doctor hurried back over to the terminal.

"I've got that more than once," the Doctor said with a shrug before he indicated the passage even as he continued to run rapidly around the terminals before him; compared to piloting the TARDIS, this was fairly simple despite the higher stakes. "Now _get _to it!"

"What about the Vashta Nerada?" Anita asked, as Mr Lux and River ran from the room, leaving the Doctor to frantically work at the computer terminal; even with the planned link-up to the TARDIS, he still needed to prepare the system at this end.

"These are their forests," the Doctor said, as he hurried over to examine another panel. "If I can seal Charlotte in her world- with a few copies of some of the people here to give her a bit more company; we can sort out 'who' when we get around to that- and then get everyone else out, the shadows can swarm to their hearts' content!"

"So you think they're just going to let us go?" Anita asked, the almost neutral tone of her voice a confirmation of the Doctor's fears even as he continued to examine what was behind the multiple doors around him.

"Best offer they're going to get," the Doctor said grimly, using his own screwdriver to adjust a few settings on the machinery behind the door he'd just opened.

"You're going to make them an offer?" Anita asked.

"They'd better take it, 'cause right now, I'm finding it _very _hard to make any kind of offer at all," the Doctor said, looking grimly over at the figure in the spacesuit even as he ran back to the terminal. "You know what, I _really _liked Anita; she was brave, even when she was crying, and she never gave in... _and you ate her_."

With that statement, the Doctor paused in his work and turned the sonic screwdriver onto the spacesuit's visor, exposing the skeleton within the suit.

"But I'll let that pass," the Doctor said, his gaze fixed on the terminal- he didn't trust himself to keep his cool if he looked at the suit that had once held Anita- even as he continued to speak. "Just as long as you let them pass."

"How long have you known?" the Vashta Nerada that had consumed Anita asked, as the Doctor finished entering the last commands into the terminal and walked forward to face the living shadow directly.

"I counted the shadows," he replied simply. "You only have one now."

A glance at the dim light on the relay on the suit's neck simply confirmed what he already knew.

"She's nearly gone," he said, swallowing slightly sadly as he looked back at the skeleton. "Be kind."

"_These are our forest_," the Vashta Nerada replied, its voice now noticeably deeper than Anita's, clearly having decided to abandon any pretence of humanity. "_We are not kind_."

"I'm giving you back your forests," the Doctor countered, staring intently at the skeleton, "but you are giving me them; you are letting them _go_."

With that, he turned back to the terminal, determined to complete his work; he'd made his offer, and now it was up to them.

"_These are our forests_," the Vashta Nerada repeated. "_They are our meat_."

Turning around, the Doctor almost wished he was surprised to see the skeleton pointing at him as shadows began to swarm around it, spreading out from the darkness around the room to approach him; when dealing with a predatory race, a refusal to give up was almost to be expected.

"_Don't _play games with me!" he said, any fear he might have felt in the face of such an implacable enemy pushed aside by his anger. "You just killed someone I liked; that is _not _a safe place to stand!"

As the shadows continued to advance, the Doctor knew that he had just one card left to play; he knew that information about him was fairly common by the vulgar end of time, and there was probably more than a few recorded examples of his history in the history of the universe- Alistair's posthumous autobiography sprang to mind-, but the question was if there was enough available to make the kind of impact he needed...

"I'm the _Doctor_, and you're in the biggest library in the universe," he said, looking grimly at the creature in front of him. "Look me up."

For a moment, there was nothing but silence as the two figures stared at each other in a weaponless stand-off- the Doctor couldn't even consider it a staring contest when one party didn't even have eyes any more-, the shadows around the suit withdrew back towards their source.

"_You have one day_," the Vashta Nerada said to him.

With that, the suit and skeleton that had once been Anita's collapsed, leaving the Doctor with nothing but the memory of the woman who had been there earlier.

"Right then," the Doctor said, trying to push the image out of his mind as he turned his attention back to the screens before him, "just need to set everything up- set it to go off at the end of the countdown; blip in the command flow should increase chances of a clean download- and then..."

Despite himself, he smiled. "Four thousand and twenty-four saved; not a bad day's work, all things considered."

It didn't make up for those he'd failed to save, and the loss of the Library was a definite downer- all those books, lost to history forever-, but it was still a good day compared to how it could have gone.

"Right then," he said, focusing his attention on the previously-noticed socket. "Time to get to work; _allonys-y_!"

With that, he rammed the sonic screwdriver into the plug, and stepped back as it began to glow with a brilliant blue light, the faint wheezing of his oldest and dearest companion at work reaching his brain on a level deeper than conventional senses as she began to transfer processing power to assist in the current task.

It wasn't completely done yet, but at least the hard part was over; with the TARDIS's processing power available to them, and with his new 'deal' with the Vashta Nerada, all he had to do was get everything set up and they were sorted.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the visitors who had previously been contained in CAL now back in their own bodies and heading home, Mr Lux promising to do everything he could to get them back into society, the Doctor stood solemnly outside the TARDIS, staring contemplatively at the ship's doors.

It was actually slightly amusing, in its way; he'd just saved over four thousand people- including his companions- from being trapped in a computer or devoured by living shadows, given a giant supercomputer a few select friends to keep it/her company in the long years ahead- the sacrifice of the Library was a shame, but it was just something that had to be done-, and the only thing _really _on his mind right now was a casual comment he'd heard River make earlier.

"_He'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers_..."

It wasn't just ridiculous, it was impossible; Time Lords _needed _keys to open their ships...

And yet...

This was the ship that had shown jealousy when he'd almost sacrificed it and himself to save Charley during that mess with Zagreus... the ship whose alternate self hadn't trusted him when he'd been forced to travel in it after that mess with the Silurian Earth simply because he wasn't _her _Doctor... the ship that had given its very existence in a desperate attempt to save him from the Paradox biodata virus...

If it could do all that for him, why was it so impossible to assume that he could do... _this_?

Raising his hand before him, the Doctor snapped his fingers, and the TARDIS doors opened before him, the light of the console room spreading out from the interior to surround him, the warmth of his old friend and transport a stark cry from the slight chill of death and loss that seemed to fill the Library, even if it was only on a psychic level...

"Did it ever mean anything?" a voice said from behind him.

"What... River?" the Doctor said, turning around to look at the woman in question as she stood in the middle of the lobby, a slight gleam of tears in her eyes as she looked at him.

"What I had with you... what you _will _have with me... did it mean anything?" River asked, her lip trembling faintly as she walked up to him. "I've always known you didn't... _couldn't_... see me the way I..."

Her voice trailed off, River briefly shaking her head as though she wanted to stop herself from finishing that sentence before she looked back at him. "But... the last time I saw you... _future _you... you gave me the screwdriver... you said that the next time I saw you would be the last time _I _saw you..."

"And you want to know if everything we spent together was just to get to this moment?" the Doctor finished, smiling sympathetically at the woman before him as he walked over to her.

"Professor Song," he said at last, looking contemplatively at her as he spoke, taking care to pick his words accurately- what he had to say was probably going to be difficult, but there was no point making it more difficult than it had to be-, "I'm not going to lie to you and say that you're the most... conventional person I've ever met..., I can't speak for what reasons I might have for spending time with you in the future when I don't know what I'll be like then, and I'm_ definitely _not going to insult both of us by saying that today's events might not have played a _part _in what I'll do later... but, even without speaking for my future self- which I can't do because we all change too much it's impossible to speak for ourselves; I can give myself advice from the future but leaving advice or memos for my future selves tends to get _ridiculously _more complicated since I can never be sure how I'll take it when I get it-, I can tell you this; if I hadn't wanted to spend time with you, I wouldn't have _kept _spending time with you. I could have just given you the screwdriver before you got here and left it at that; you wouldn't have needed to have met me at any point before that little stop-over."

"And... that would have worked?" River asked uncertainly, even as a slight smile crossed her face. "I _am _a bit stubborn, after all... and our history has been... tricky."

"Well, I can't speak for what our history might have been like, but I did do that kind of thing when I had to convince the founder of a colony to listen to me when I woke her up in my past while I was trying to figure out a few mysteries of the time," the Doctor said with a shrug, allowing himself a brief smile at the memory of that meeting with Kirann Ransom on Axtias Four and those long-ago days with Jamie and Zoe- he might have been a bit slow in that incarnation, with most of his plans last-minute botch-jobs more than anything else, but he had _definitely _been able to relax more in that body than he had been able to in later ones- before he turned his attention back to River. "The point is, however you will know me, I wouldn't be there if I didn't _want _to be there; if I kept on turning up like I did... well, I must have had _some _reason for it."

After a moment where the two of them stared silently at each other, River smiled softly at him.

"Thanks," she said, sniffing briefly before she seemed to compose herself, leaning over to kiss him briefly on the cheek before she stepped back once again. "Well... goodbye."

"Goodbye?" the Doctor repeated.

"You said it the last time I saw you... _will _see you," River said, a slightly trembling smile on her face as she looked at him. "You told me that I'd see you one more time... and then you'd be there to meet me all over again."

"Ah," the Doctor said, briefly wondering how his future self could guarantee that he wouldn't see River in her future from this moment on before pushing it aside; he'd probably understand when he got there.

"Oh, and... you'll be happy with Martha," River added, smiling briefly at him. "When I knew you in the future, one thing you always made clear was that Martha Jones was... well, as far as you were concerned, she was everything to you before I met you..."

Not sure what to say to that comment, the Doctor simply stood in silence as River Song turned around and walked away into the darkness of the Library, heading for the teleporters that would take her away from this world, leaving the Doctor with nothing to do but watch her depart (He thought he heard her mutter something about someone else meaning a great deal to him, but he didn't bother listening to that; anything that encouraged him to think about what would happen to him after Martha was gone was something he didn't care to consider right now).

He had to admit, arrogance issues aside- and those struck him as more of a defensive thing than anything else now that he looked back; _act _overly confident to conceal her more emotionally fragile state-, she wasn't that bad; she just didn't strike him as someone he could see himself being more than friends with...

"What was that about?" Martha asked, prompting the Doctor to turn around as his two companions walked towards him; they'd been helping Mr Lux sort out where everyone was meant to be sent- as well as making sure that the copies the Doctor had made of a few people to help keep CAL company had come through intact-, so the Library must be almost cleared out by now.

"Oh, River?" the Doctor said, indicating the door that Professor Song had just walked through. "Just... her saying goodbye; apparently I told her that this would be her last meeting with me, but I'm still going to meet her in my future but in her _past_..."

"Ah," Martha said, nodding slightly, unable to stop a slightly sympathetic glance after River.

The other woman might not have been exactly friendly to her, but knowing that someone you had strong feelings for was going to see you in your past while you'd never see him again in your future _had _to be weird...

"Time travel _does _get a bit confusing, doesn't it?" Donna said, looking at the Doctor with a slight smile.

"It has its ups and downs; keeping track of who you've met depending on when you've met them _can_ get a bit complicated- I need to keep a calendar about when I met the likes of Will or Winston to be sure I don't visit them too casually when they don't know who I am-, but it's practically _impossible _when dealing with other time travellers..." the Doctor commented, before he shrugged and indicated the still-open TARDIS with a wave of his hand.

"Anyway," he said, eager to put the grimness of the Library and the implications of the future behind him until the time came when he had to face them again, "now that that's dealt with, who's for a bit of R&R at one of the most exotic leisure complexes in the universe?"

* * *

AN 5: To answer an obvious question, the Doctor's reference to Nyssa and Mel refers to Nyssa's meeting with the Fourth Doctor in "Asylum"- which took place for Nyssa after her departure from the Fifth Doctor in "Terminus" while from the Fourth's perspective it apparently took place after "The Deadly Assassin"-, and the Sixth Doctor summoned Mel, a companion he would travel with in his future, into his present to serve as a witness at his trial in "The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe"

AN 6: The incident where the Doctor talked to the founder of a colony so that she'd trust his past self took place in the novel "The Colony of Lies", where the Seventh Doctor spoke with Kirann Ransom- the daughter of Stuart Ransom, who went on to found a colony on the planet Axista Four- before she went into stasis so that she would be more inclined to trust the Second Doctor when he brought her out of stasis some decades after her ship had crash-landed, since the younger Doctor would need her help solving the colony's mysteries

AN 7: On a personal note, I'll say this right now; River did _not_, at any point, whisper the Doctor's 'true' name to him (Assuming that's what she said; I've got my doubts about that), since in this take on events the Doctor recognised that the current crisis- particularly with Martha and Donna's lives at stake- wasn't the right time to start asking questions about such a comparatively minor detail as River possessing a sonic screwdriver

AN 8: With that encounter out of the way, after the next chapter- which presents a brief look at how Leela's fit into life at Torchwood, while also leading into that group's role in upcoming events-, the villains launch their first assault, and the new elements of this plot _really _begin...


	15. Leela in Torchwood

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Not a 'villain' interlude this time; instead, with the story starting to diverge from canon in a more _obvious _manner starting with the next chapter, I thought it would be best to introduce some of the Doctor's allies in the upcoming struggle, as well as provide some idea of how things have been going for a certain old friend of the Doctor's...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As she sat up in the bed of the flat that she had been provided with upon first arriving in Cardiff, Leela allowed herself a few moments, as she always did, to look around the rooms that had become her new home.

It was a small flat in comparison to the rooms she had possessed on Gallifrey, but it was still fairly comfortable, and the entirety of her new team had 'chipped in' to purchase it for her as an advance on her first few... 'paychecks', as Ianto Jones had called the slips that gave her financial status on this world.

Once Toshiko Sato had created a background for Leela on Earth with the aid of Sarah Jane Smith- a woman who Leela recalled the Doctor telling her about in a couple of his stories of his past-, Leela had found herself with a comfortable two-bedroom flat- the second room present in case she had visitors- with a decent-sized kitchen and dining area, complete with a small training room to the side. As far as her neighbours and officials on this planet were concerned, her name was Leela Gardner, widow of police detective Andrew Gardner, who now worked at Torchwood as the security consultant; Toshiko claimed that she had simply taken Leela's stories of her past and 'tweaked' them- a very Doctor-ish term, in Leela's opinion- to suit Earth's way of life, and Leela had found no reason to doubt her friend when she had found herself in a position where she had needed to use the story.

She had yet to find sufficient time to do an in-depth exploration of the city around her, but Gwen and Toshiko had taken her around for a couple of nights out when they'd had the spare time away from Rhys and Owen- Toshiko and Owen's relationship was actually working out surprisingly well-, and Jack always gave Leela the chance to study maps of the areas where they detected alien activity to ensure that she had a good awareness of the territory they'd be investigating. It still wasn't the same as looking at it first-hand, but Leela liked to think she was coping well enough; after the trouble she'd had adapting to life on Gallifrey, the streets in this area were relatively easy to keep track of.

Even her missions, simple though they might have been, had proven interesting. The mission involving that old millionaire who collected alien artefacts had been relatively straightforward- Leela's skills might have been picked up while she was training to hunt animals rather than infiltrate security systems, but with the additional techniques and knowledge she had picked up from the Doctor and Romana it hadn't been too hard to use some alien anti-gravity technology to reach the house roof and break in that way-, but the confrontation with what Jack called the 'Night-Travellers' had been refreshingly challenging- facing an enemy that she couldn't actually kill _directly _was an interesting test of her abilities-, which wasn't to say that she hadn't appreciated the more straightforward threat posed by the Nostrovite.

The sheer scale of the threat they had faced during that 'MonstaQuest' incident had been a bit confusing, of course- even when she'd travelled with the Doctor, she'd never encountered creatures that just manifested from images like that-, and she still remembered her debates with Jack about the people he was keeping alive on that island, but in the end she could understand his reasoning; she had even told him that she believed the Doctor would have done the same thing, which had seemed to bring her fellow former companion some degree of comfort.

The SkyPoint crisis had been a close call, of course- the creatures that Leela faced with Torchwood definitely seemed to be closer to the demons she had learned about growing up than anything she had encountered with the Doctor, save for that difficult meeting with the Fendahl; a creature that came from the realm after death and moulded itself based on your thoughts was not something to take lightly-, but Leela and Owen's idea to trick the creature into consuming dead flesh salvaged after a recent mission had fortunately paid off (Although Leela admitted that she had simply been trying to make the creature ill based on her memories of predators ignoring the dead in favour of the living).

As for her teammates themselves...

Leela would be the first to admit that she had understood little of Earth culture when she first arrived on the planet- a few brief visits to that world in the Doctor's company were hardly enough to provide her with a clear idea of what it was like on a long-term basis-, but with Gwen and Toshiko's help she had so far managed to avoid any awkward misunderstandings about the world she now found herself in. She had even been introduced to Gwen's family at her recent wedding, accepting an offer to act as a 'reserve bridesmaid' to gain a clearer understanding of Earth culture, although the damage she had done to her dress in the fight with the Nostrovite had caused some surprise- Rhys Williams's mother had been particularly shocked at her bringing a knife to the ceremony- before the situation was explained; even the wedding itself had been fascinating in its simplicity.

Even Ianto and Owen were pleasant company, despite Leela's initial surprise at learning of Ianto's relationship with Captain Harkness; although such a relationship had been met with disdain back on her world- the Sevateem were so small a tribe that anything that would have... restricted... their ability to continue had been quickly 'discouraged'-, Leela had recognised long ago that her old views on life could not apply out in the wider universe the Doctor had introduced her to, and simply attempted to ignore it unless circumstances forced her to do otherwise. Owen's new relationship with Toshiko meant that she more regularly interacted with him when the two were together, but he wasn't bad company when the two found themselves with each other.

Captain Harkness, of course, was the member of her new team that she had bonded with the most; not only were they both warriors- even if Captain Harkness tended to use weapons in combat while she relied on a more physically approach-, but they had also both spent time in the Doctor's company, giving them a great deal more to share than might be initially assumed. Captain Harkness had been particularly fascinated to hear about her and the Doctor's encounter with Magnus Greel during one of Leela's early trips in the TARDIS- apparently Greel's disappearance had long been a particularly sore point among Captain Harkness's former employees in the Time Agency-, although other stories such as their dealings with the Swarm had attracted the Captain's interest as well, while Leela had been fascinated at some of the Captain's tales of his wartime experiences even from _before _he had met the Doctor...

The sound of her phone ringing distracted Leela from her reflections, prompting her to bring her thoughts swiftly back to the present- she had become almost too used to spending time with the Doctor; it was hard to remember that, unlike the TARDIS, not _every _place she lived in was going to be automatically safe while she slept and that she needed to be more alert- as she stood up and walked over to the table where her phone lay.

"Yes?" she asked, picking up the phone and pressing the 'Accept Call' button; it was more basic than the visual communication devices she had used on Gallifrey, but Leela preferred it nevertheless.

"_Leela_?" Captain Harkness's voice said at the other end of the line. "_You'd better get here fast; we've got some strange life-form readings coming from outside the city, and_-"

"I will be there shortly, Captain," Leela said, heading for her wardrobe to don her usual 'mission attire' (Since her old leathers would have naturally attracted too much attention, she now tended to wear dark trousers and a long-sleeved shirt under a jacket, allowing her easy freedom of movement as well as a couple of promising places for her to keep her old knife and any additional weapons she might need).

It might not turn out to be a mission where she could contribute a great deal, but Leela had learned long ago from the Doctor that not every situation automatically required violence to solve; if she could contribute, she would be there to do so, and that was what mattered.

* * *

AN 2: So, with that information in mind, shall I assume everyone knows what the Torchwood team are going to be dealing with?

Of course, what you _don't _know is that the team are about to get some _very _unexpected help in their efforts; 'who' will be revealed after the Doctor's current activities have been established...


	16. Midnight

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A short rewrite of "Midnight"; I didn't see much point in rewriting this to a significant degree, as the original course of events leaves the Doctor in the _perfect _state of mind (From the perspective of the villains, anyway) for the upcoming confrontation...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As she lay back on her chair in the resort's sunbathing lounge, Martha had to admit, so far this resort was shaping up to be everything that the Doctor had promised it was and more. She and Donna had divided their time between the saunas, the masseuses and the swimming pool, with the Doctor occasionally joining them at the poolside- although he tended to bring a book to read rather than just relaxing to appreciate the exterior view through the windows around them-, and so far there hadn't been so much as a _single _sign of any kind of alien attack or possible threat of any make or description.

At the moment, the two women were having another relaxing lounge by the poolside- the running they did with the Doctor might keep them in shape, but it was nice to not have to worry about that sort of thing for once- while the Doctor was away on some kind of shuttle tour of the planet's surface; he'd asked for them to come along, but after the stress of their last few trips Donna and Martha had both felt more like relaxing than taking more trips anywhere.

"You're _kidding_!" Donna said, looking at Martha incredulously.

"Trust me, I wish; I couldn't believe it when he told me about it the first time," Martha replied with a teasing smile at her friend.

"But... the _Loch Ness Monster_?" Donna said, her eyes wide as she looked at Martha. "It's _real_?"

"Well, the Doctor said it _was _real, anyway- he didn't specify if it was still in Loch Ness or if it had 'run down' without the Zygons to maintain it-, but..." Martha began, only to trail off as she saw someone coming towards her out of the corner of her eye. As she and Donna turned around, they saw a member of the hotel staff coming towards them, a slightly solemn expression on his face.

"Miss Jones, Miss Noble?" he said, looking between the two in a slightly inquiring manner, the two women responding to his inquiry with a nod. "You came here with... Doctor John Smith, correct?"

"Yeah..." Donna said uncertainly.

"The same Doctor Smith who took the tour out earlier today?" the man asked.

"Yes?" Martha said, a slight twinge of fear in her chest as she looked at the other man, her mind automatically leaping to what she could only hope was a wrong assumption even as her knowledge of the man she loved stopped her from entertaining that hope for longer than a few seconds.

"I have to inform you both that we lost contact with Doctor Smith's bus," the man said, his expression becoming more solemn as he spoke. "We've dispatched a recovery shuttle to collect the bus's passengers, and it should be back within a few minutes, but the managers thought it best to inform you of the situation..."

The rest of the man's words almost didn't register as Donna and Martha looked apprehensively at each other, the same thoughts of concern flashing across their minds.

They might have faith in the Doctor's ability to handle himself in a crisis, but this wasn't the usual kind of danger they faced on a daily basis; if something had happened to him while he was cut off from the TARDIS, on a planet where you couldn't even go out onto the surface without being practically instantly bombarded by intense radiation...

The Doctor was good, but Donna and Martha wouldn't have been human if they hadn't admitted to having doubts about whether or not he was _that _good.

* * *

About an hour later, the Doctor sat solemnly opposite Donna and Martha in his and Martha's room, the reassuring blue form of the TARDIS in one corner- they'd passed it off as a large suitcase when they'd initially checked in- as he narrated about the events that had taken place on the shuttle.

Hearing his story, Martha was just grateful that the shuttle back had been far quicker than the shuttle forward- the rescue shuttle had naturally been designed for faster speeds than what the tour shuttle had been capable of-; from what the Doctor was telling her about his experiences, she had a feeling he would have been far from comfortable spending more time than he had to with people who had been willing to kill him.

Even if Martha thought she could see how the people in the shuttle could have reached that point- dealing with something like what the Doctor had described couldn't exactly have been pleasant at the best of times-, that wouldn't have helped the Doctor feel better about himself; to see humanity descend into a panicky mob despite all his efforts to calm them down, essentially proving him wrong at a moment when he'd most needed to believe in them...

"What d'you think it was?" Donna asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled over them as the two women processed what their friend had told them.

"No idea," the Doctor replied simply, his chin in his hands as he looked thoughtfully at the two of them.

"Is it... still out there?" Martha asked, noting the slight fear in his eyes that was only visible because she knew him so well; evidently, the idea of him not _knowing _what he'd been dealing with was almost the worst part of his recent experience.

The Doctor said nothing in response to Martha's query, but the concern in his eyes and the furrowing of his forehead at the implications of Martha's suggestion were all she needed to confirm that the scenario was still a possibility.

"Well, you'd better tell 'em," Donna said, indicating the view out of the room's window. "This lot."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, one hand rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke. "They can build a Leisure Palace somewhere else. Let this planet keep on turning, 'round an Xtonic star... in silence."

"I can't imagine you without a voice," Martha said after a brief pause, reaching over to gently stroke his arm; after everything she'd seen of his other selves, it was clear that the ability to talk had always been such an important part of who the Doctor was that the concept of him being unable to do so seemed more wrong than the idea of something else taking it for themselves.

"Molto bene," the Doctor said, smiling weakly at the two of them.

"Molto bene!" Donna replied, a teasing grin on her face that almost automatically vanished at the Doctor's suddenly bleak expression.

"No, don't do that," he said, an almost warning expression on his face as he looked at her. "Don't. Don't..."

As the Doctor sat there in silence, Martha and Donna could only look at each other.

Martha had seen the Doctor reach an emotional low after that mess with the Master and Rose, but that had just been the aftermath of a naturally emotionally trying experience; his current condition...

It was the closest Martha had ever come to seeing the man she loved looking genuinely defeated.

He hadn't been able to win people over, and the rule of the mob had nearly killed him, and _definitely _killed two innocent women, who had done nothing more serious than be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It wasn't that she didn't think the Doctor _couldn't _recover from this- he'd definitely been through similarly difficult experiences in the past; destroying Gallifrey was just the most obvious example rather than the only one-, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to be dealing with issues about his recent experience for some time...

* * *

Thousands of light-years away, in a place where Time both was and was not, a man dressed in black smiled as he sensed what he had been waiting for.

The moment had come.

Now, more than at almost any other point in this life, the Doctor had seen the worst that humanity could be, and it had left him shaken in his faith for those he had protected for so long.

If he struck _now_- particularly with the _other _targets currently available to him thanks to the many resources provided by his allies-, the Doctor would be vulnerable on an emotional and psychological level that he had so rarely fallen to in his travels; with a plan of such scale waiting to be put into action, any advantage they could gain was not one to be lightly cast aside.

_Let the games begin_...

* * *

AN 2: There we have it; beginning with the next chapter, the _true _story begins, as the Doctor experiences his enemies' first assault...


	17. The Attack Begins

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: This takes place shortly after "Midnight", with the Doctor, Martha and Donna back in the TARDIS after leaving Midnight, preceded by another villain 'interlude' as they begin their plan of attack...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Right then," the leader said, turning to look at his forces with a casual smile. "Prepare yourselves, my friends; the time for our attack has come."

"Now?" the group's last official member asked- their more recent, unofficial addition was naturally not here due to the risks of him being shown to take too keen an interest in things here-, looking at the leader in confusion. "But we have yet to find a suitable power source for our-"

"The power we need is on Earth; _that _issue is fully under control, I assure you," the man replied with a firm nod. "In the meantime, you are all to proceed as instructed. Your chosen targets have been located, and the means to mount your assault have been provided for you; all you need to do is ensure that the Doctor remains ignorant of your involvement in events until the time is right for him to know."

"I see..." the group's second and oldest recruit said, looking contemplatively at their self-appointed leader. "And where will you be amid all this?"

"I?" the man replied, smiling as he indicating the control console nearby him. "Where else would I be? I am taking our slave to ensure that what the power source we need is in the condition that we need it... and how better to achieve that than hands-on observation?"

"You're going to Earth?" his first recruit said, looking at him with a pointed stare. "But the Doctor will surely know that you are there-"

"Only if he knows what to look for," the group's leader replied, smiling as he casually patted the control console beside him. "With the advantages offered by our slave, coupled with the fact of _when _I shall be encountering him in the state we need for the plan to work..."

He chuckled. "Well, so long as I don't make things obvious, what reason would he have to notice me?"

"You are _provoking _an encounter with him?" the last arrival said, glaring as intensely at the group leader as his condition would allow. "But the dangers-!"

"Are minimal compared to the benefits, my friend," the leader said, a grim smile still on his face as he began to study the controls before him. "All we require now is patience, and we shall be ready to begin."

Even as he stared at the group, he knew that they would never understand why he was _really _doing this.

What he was planning was risky, but he wanted to _see _the Doctor- even if it might not be a Doctor that knew who he was or had any idea of his existence at first- as he realised just _who _had dealt him such a devastating defeat...

After the way their last encounter had concluded, he wanted to ensure that any thoughts the Doctor had about his own superiority over him were put to rest once and for all.

* * *

As he stood at the TARDIS console, staring at the controls before him, it was one of the few times in his life when the Doctor wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

Even if he had no particular idea where to go next, he was normally satisfied with just setting the controls to random and taking it from there, but after what had just happened...

He knew that it wasn't fair of him to judge all of humanity by the panicked reactions of a small group in a situation that would have been terrifying from any perspective- and he _wasn't _judging humanity; he _knew _from his companions alone that the human race was better than that-, but to know that he could have been killed that casually- if the stewardess hadn't heard him using his current self's 'catch phrase' earlier he could have easily been thrown out of the bus.

He could have _died_ simply because a random mob were too scared to listen to him; even after expanding into space, humanity's first reaction to the unknown, despite all his attempts to appeal to their reason, had been to try and kill it because it wasn't like them.

If they could have just found a way to _talk _to it... maybe work out what it actually _wanted_... how it had reached that world and why it wanted to leave it...

_God_, he was going around in circles now; judging by the casual manner in which that creature had attempted to 'dispose' of him it was fairly clear that any intentions it might have had were _not _benign!

Actually, now that that train of thought had crossed his mind, he wasn't sure what scared him more; the thought of humanity still being capable of that kind of callousness after everything he'd believed them to be capable of, or the fact that he could understand where they were coming from.

What had happened to the old days where he had delighted in discovery and mourned the loss of everything he discovered, even if it had been trying to kill him? Even knowing that he only resorted to those kind of measures when he was sure there was no other choice, would there come a point where even that excuse stopped applying any more...?

"Doctor?" a voice said, driving him from his bleak train of thought and prompting him to turn around, allowing himself to feel slightly better as Donna and Martha walked towards him, Martha looking at him with the concern and compassion she always seemed willing to share with so many people. "Are... are you all right?"

"Just... wondering where to go, really," the Doctor replied, smiling weakly over at his two companions. "I'm all right... really."

"Is 'all right' special Time Lord code for... 'really not all right at all'?" Donna asked, looking at him with a pointed stare. "Doctor, you just had people ready to _kill _you; it's all right to admit that you're a bit shaken-!"

"_I'm not_...!" the Doctor began, briefly raising his voice in frustration before he saw Martha's pointed stare and calmed down, looking apologetically at his lover. "Sorry; it's just..."

"When you've defended us against accusations of being primitive for so long, it sucks when we do something to prove them right, huh?" Martha said, smiling in understanding at the Time Lord.

"I _know _that what happened in that bus was an extreme situation- even _I _was a bit disturbed by it-, but to just... try and _kill _me like that..." the Doctor began, before he shook his head and bent over the control console, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself.

"It's OK, Doctor," Martha said, reaching over to place a hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to-"

"No; I _do_," the Doctor said, looking back at her. "I have to recognise that what happened was a bad experience that I _cannot _allow to define my future interactions with humanity and move on from there; I _have _to-"

Before he could say anything else- although he had to acknowledge that he wasn't sure what he was going to say; right now he was operating on a 'speak-as-I-think' basis-, a sudden pain seemed to strike his hearts and head respectively, prompting him to stagger back against the nearest column, one hand clutching his chest as another reached up to his head.

"Doctor?" Martha asked, as she and Donna hurried over to crouch down beside him as he slumped to the floor, gasping for air as he looked anxiously at the TARDIS column. "What's wrong?"

"Something's changing..." the Doctor gasped, looking over at Martha with a half-vacant gaze, as though he wasn't fully registering her presence. "Something's wrong... something's _different_..."

"What?" Donna asked, looking at him in confusion. "Look, if this is about what happened-?"

"It's not what happened then, Donna," the Doctor said, his voice a faint whisper as he stared at the central column, his mind drifting back through the memories that were appearance in his mind as the events occurred in his past for the first time. "It's about what happened..."

-_He was in the TARDIS control room, a stick of celery on his lapel as he and a blonde-haired girl studied the five chunks of crystal they'd gone through so much to obtain, the ship already searching for the last one..._

_-He was in a darkened room in a new TARDIS, face-to-face with an older blonde woman in a suit, who stared at him with a cold manner as he faced a duty he'd never asked for or wanted..._

_-He was in a console room unlike any other ever developed, an unshaven man in a leather jacket looking apprehensively at him as the new ship's randomiser took them everywhere and nowhere..._

"... _then_..." he whispered, his eyes widening in horrified realisation. "They're in danger..."

"Who?" Donna asked, looking at the Doctor in confusion. "Who's in danger?"

"My other selves," the Doctor replied, looking over at the red-headed woman with a slight smile that failed to conceal his grim apprehension at his latest revelation. "Someone... is attacking my _past_..."

"Hold on; your _past_?" Martha asked, looking at him with renewed apprehension. "As in... your _past _past? Someone's actually trying to kill you _before _now?"

"And... that's unusual?" Donna asked, looking between the Doctor and Martha in confusion. "I mean, no offence, but if what you're like now's any indication, you must have had _lots _of people trying to kill you..."

"If I'm feeling it... it isn't _meant_ to happen..." the Doctor said, wincing slightly as another jolt of pain shot through his body even as he walked over to the console, tapping a few buttons so that the monitor screen could revert to a touch-sensitive setting as he began to rapidly draw on the screen with his fingers. "Someone from _now _is attacking my past... they want to kill me before I'm in a position to be aware of them to stop me doing... something..."

"Sorry, can we have that in English for those of us who don't speak temporal jiggery-pokery?" Donna asked, raising her hand as she looked in confusion between her two companions.

"In a nutshell?" the Doctor said, looking over at Donna with a pointed stare. "Right now, somebody from this point in my relative timestream has gone back in time and is attacking my past selves in a manner that is _very _likely to kill them before they can become me, and I am currently attempting to carry out the necessary temporal equations to send you two back to my past TARDISes-"

"_What_?" Martha and Donna said, looking incredulously at the Time Lord.

"Look, there are three locations- according to my memory- where I'm in trouble, and I don't think that sending back a simple message to alert my other selves about it will be enough; there's three of us, so it makes sense for us to split up and warn my other selves accordingly," the Doctor said, seemingly ignorant of the incredulous stares he was receiving from his friends. "I did these once by accident, so it should be straightforward enough when I _know _what I'm doing; all I need to do is set up the necessary temporal/spatial coordinates and establish the doors between the TARDIS in its present and the TARDIS in its pasts- no, wait, I need to establish it with another TARDIS-"

"_Another_?" Martha repeated, looking at the Doctor in surprise; the idea that the Doctor had ever used another TARDIS was something she'd never expected to hear.

"It's a complicated period of my life; we'll just need to focus on the essential details here," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly as he continued to impatiently scrawl away on the screen before him. "Donna, you'll be making contact with my fifth self- nice chap, wears a cricket outfit; from what I recall I'm travelling with Amy searching for the segments of the Key to Time-, and Martha, you'll be dealing with my seventh self; he's in a bit of a... difficult situation when you get there, but-"

"Hold on; your past selves have _numbers_?" Donna asked, shaking her head as she looked at him in evidently-increasingly frustration. "What's wrong with just saying I'm going to see you when you're five hundred-?"

"Because it's a lot more complicated than that and this isn't the time for a full explanation; just know that I'll look _very _different when you get back there and worry about the specifics once you've alerted me to the fact that I'm in danger," the Doctor said, momentarily pausing in his equations as he looked resolutely at Donna. "Now, could you please be _quiet_; I've got a lot to get down right now and I'd like to get it done as soon as possible before anyone does anything to my past that I'll feel here."

As Donna nodded in a slightly stunned manner, the Doctor returned his attention to the matter in front of him, simultaneously hoping that what he had planned would be enough- if he could just time the calculations so that Donna and Martha arrived _before _whatever was happening to his past selves started, they might be able to get the TARDIS defences up in time to block the worst of any potential damage-, and wondering what was the meaning of the sudden nagging itch- something being odd more than something being _wrong_- about an incident that had happened back when he was with Susan, Ian and Barbara...

* * *

AN 2: Well, there you have it; the Doctor's sending Donna and Martha to meet his fifth and seventh selves (For clarification, the 'Amy' the Doctor mentioned is a sentient Tracer sent to help him find the Key to Time, and has _no _connection to Amy Pond; she was actually created for the audio adventures _before _Amy appeared, and the producers have subsequently created a new miniseries for her where this Amy has changed her name to 'Abby' after leaving the Doctor) to investigate strange attacks in his past, he's visiting his eighth self- bonus points to anyone who can identify the Seventh and Eighth Doctor's current companions before I introduce them officially into the story-, _and _there's something going on with his first self as well...

AN 3: To those wanting to know, the occasion where the Doctor made contact with another TARDIS by accident while writing temporal equations occurred in the novel "Interference", where the Eighth Doctor accidently 'contacted' his third incarnation while writing out equations in his own blood while he was imprisoned and trying to work out a way to escape (Although there was a possibility that the Doctor's enemies Faction Paradox arranged for that particular meeting, the fact that the Doctor thinks that he _could _be responsible for such an incident on his own shows that it's possible).

AN 4: Next chapter, we see a different aspect of the current attack, as we examine the meaning of that 'itch' the Doctor mentioned at the end of this chapter; let's just say that it involves more than one generation of characters interacting and leave it at that for the moment...


	18. Early Trip to Cardiff

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: This chapter begins with the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara during the latter stage of their travels- the precise period isn't important, save that it's at a time that they're relatively comfortable with each other-, and other elements of this chapter will be explained when the time comes to explain them

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Cardiff?" Ian said, looking at the Doctor in surprise as he indicated the view on the TARDIS monitor. "You landed us in _Cardiff_?"

"Quite, my boy, quite," the Doctor said, nodding slightly as he studied the readouts on the TARDIS console, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Actually, it's not too far from your own time; according to the yearometer, we've just landed in mid-2008..."

His voice trailed off as he studied the information before him, his thoughtful expression being replaced by a confusion that Ian didn't like the implications of; even if he'd learned fairly early on that the Doctor didn't have any _real _control over the TARDIS, the old man always at least _tried _to act like he knew what he was doing...

"Grandfather?" Susan asked, looking uncertainly at the old man, clearly having picked up on the same thing that Ian had. "What's wrong?"

"Mmm? Oh, not _wrong_, exactly, my dear, just... odd," the Doctor said, his eyes narrowing as he took in the information in front of him. "According to this, there's some unusual spacial-temporal activity taking place within the Cardiff rift..."

"The what?" Barbara asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"Oh, Cardiff's built on a rift in time and space- one of many such rifts across the universe on a wide variety of planets-; it attracts some rather... interesting creatures to the city when it acts in a certain manner," the Doctor explained, looking at Barbara with a brief smile before he returned his attention to the readings before him. "But that still doesn't explain this; this rift shouldn't be anywhere _near _this active without..."

"Without... _them_?" Susan asked, her eyes suddenly wide in apprehension as she looked at her grandfather. "You mean-?"

"No, my child; if they were going to investigate this, they would be here already," the Doctor replied, looking at Susan with a brief reassuring smile before his expression became grim once again, the resolution in his eyes cutting off any thoughts that Ian or Barbara might have had about asking the Doctor for an explanation for his enigmatic comments. "Unfortunately, regardless of the reasons for the rift's current activity not attracting any attention from... certain people..., the fact remains that, in its current condition, it is causing far too much turbulence for us to depart."

"Turbulence?" Barbara repeated, a slightly incredulous smile on her face at the concept. "The TARDIS can experience turbulence?"

"Certain anomalies in the time vortex that we travel through _are_ capable of disrupting our ability to effectively travel, Miss Wright," the Doctor confirmed with a nod before he returned his attention to the TARDIS console. "While I cannot identify the source, there is a great deal of energy being channelled through the rift at this time that makes navigation away from here all but impossible; until further notice, our best chance of departing seems to be to leave the ship and attempt to track the source of the anomaly."

"And... you're sure there _is _one?" Ian asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "Couldn't this just be a... a kind of hurricane?"

"A natural event, you mean?" the Doctor asked, smiling slightly at the science teacher's query. "A good theory, but an unlikely one, Chesterfield. While such occurrences are possible, if such was the case we would... well, we would be seeing more conventional damage in this city than what we are currently witnessing; the fact that the damage is concentrated in the higher dimensions lends weight to it being artificially induced."

"So..." Barbara asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor as she turned over what he'd just said in her mind to make sure she understood it. "Something's _making _this... rift... act up at this point?"

"From what I can determine, yes, Miss Wright," the Doctor confirmed, before he smiled reassuringly at them. "On an encouraging note, the TARDIS has been able to determine the location of a surprisingly sophisticated piece of technology in the immediate vicinity that appears to have some connection to the rift in question; even if it is not the cause of the rift's current turbulence, it should at least provide us with a means of determining the true source of the disruption, or possibly stopping it altogether."

"So... we just need to go out there and take a look?" Ian asked.

"Precisely," the Doctor said, smiling in confirmation at his friend as he activated the door controls. "Well, come on, then; it's only a short walk from here to the equipment we're looking for."

Exchanging brief glances of slightly amused exasperation at the Doctor's continued enthusiasm for the mysteries they encountered, Ian and Barbara followed the Doctor and Susan out of the ship, the Doctor pausing only to lock the doors before he continued walking along the large open plaza in front of them, the TARDIS having materialised on the corner of a nearby street.

The small group had only just started walking across the open area when a young woman- maybe a few years older than Susan physically- almost ran into Barbara, another man dressed in a darn green velvet jacket, dark trousers, and a ruffled shirt under the jacket, hurrying over to look at the fallen girl.

"Are you all right, Jo?" he asked.

"I'm fine, thanks," the young girl said as she stood up, revealing that she was dressed in a simple blue dress and a long brown jacket, looking at Barbara with an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that; we're in a hurry-"

"_You_?" the man in velvet said, interrupting his friend's explanation as he looked incredulously at the Doctor, his concern about his friend apparently forgotten in place of his now-evident shock. "What are _you _doing here?"

"I should think that it should be I that is asking that question to _you_, my boy!" the Doctor retorted, his eyes narrowing slightly as he walked over to stand almost eye-to-eye with the other man. "As the younger of the two of us, my presence here can be excused as ignorance, but you yourself should have been fully aware of my presence in this time and taken steps to _avoid _coming here!"

"It's not like I chose to come here myself, old chap; I was testing the navigation system- it's been through a lot lately and I haven't had the chance to get it properly recalibrated yet- and some kind of disruption in the time vortex forced me to materialise a few hundred yards down that way," the other man said, indicating a couple of streets a short distance away from the open area they were currently standing in. "Jo and I were just coming here to track down something that the sensors indicated might be-"

"Either causing the turbulence or provide us with a clearer picture of what _is _causing it?" the Doctor finished, a slight smile on his face as he took in what the other man was saying. "Why, my boy, I was looking for that same device myself."

"You were?" the young girl- Jo, Ian recalled the other man referring to her as; probably short for 'Josephine'- said, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"Quite, my dear, quite," the Doctor said, smiling at her before he looked more seriously at the other man. "On a somewhat encouraging note, at least with two of us here we should be able to complete this work more effectively, and the turbulence will prevent anyone spotting us-"

"Sorry; what do you mean, 'two of us'?" Barbara interjected, walking forward to look in exasperation at the Doctor. "Are you saying you _know _this man?"

"Come now, Barbara," the man in velvet said, smiling at her with an easy familiarity that somehow unnerved and comforted Barbara at the same time. "After all the time we spent together in that old ship of mine, you're not going to let a little thing like a change of appearance stop you from recognising me _that _easily, are you?"

_A change of appearance_...

Barbara only had to wonder at the implications of that statement for a few moments before the meaning of the last few moments hit her.

She almost couldn't believe it; even with her limited knowledge of time travel as a concept- the possibility of this being a joke never occurred to her; she might not know this man, but she knew the Doctor well enough to know that he would never go along with a joke like this-, she'd assumed that something like this was meant to be _impossible_...

Then again, as far as she was concerned, the word 'impossible' had stopped meaning anything that long-ago day in Foreman's Yard when she'd first met the man who'd taken her away from her life in his ship; after that, this wasn't _that _much of a stretch...

"Doctor?" she said at last, looking in confusion at the man in velvet and frills, partly hoping that he'd answer in the negative and give her less reason to feel confused.

"Exactly," the man replied with a casual smile, before he turned to address the young woman who'd been accompanying him. "Everyone, this is my friend Jo Grant; Jo, these are some of my old friends, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, and my granddaughter, Susan."

"_Granddaughter_?" the young girl- now that Barbara looked at her, she couldn't be much older than Susan, although Barbara admitted that it was only a guess; given the various anomalies about Susan's family history, she had to admit that she had no way of knowing how the Doctor and Susan's people aged- said, looking at Susan in surprise.

"Yes..." Susan said, turning to look uncertainly at the older Doctor (He might look like he was younger than the Doctor they had arrived here with, but what he'd said so far at least suggested that he was a future version rather than a past one). "You mean... I'm not with you any more?"

"You... moved on, Susan," the other Doctor- _the other Doctor_? A part of Ian had to wonder what other secrets their strange driver was hiding apart from being able to change like that- said with an uncomfortable shrug. "It's not like you could have been expected to keep travelling with your old grandfather, after all; you had to find your own way eventually... and that's really all I can say at this point; things are complicated enough without you learning about your future on top of everything else."

"Oh... right," Susan said, nodding in an uncertain understanding at the other man, the Doctor in velvet returning the nod with a slight smile before he returned to the matter at hand.

"Well," he said, looking at his other self with that same slightly amused smile, "since we're both facing the same problem, we might as well assist each other in solving it. I take it that you've discovered the same thing as me; a disruption in the time vortex caused by the temporal rift running through this city?"

"And a device that is capable of controlling that rift in some manner exists in a facility a short distance away, correct?" the Doctor that Ian knew best replied, nodding in response as he indicated the direction that they had been walking in before Susan and Jo's collision. "Would it be asking too much to assume that you have a plan for identifying the device's precise location?"

"Naturally," the Doctor in velvet replied, pulling out a small silver tube-like device as he smiled at the older man. "Jo and I isolated the device's operating frequency on the TARDIS sensors and I programmed the sonic screwdriver to home in on it; it's a bit of a questionable feature on this model, but it should be enough to get us to approximately the right area to find what we're looking for."

"Ah, I see," the Doctor said, nodding in approval at the device in his other self's hand before he smiled and indicated the open area ahead of them. "Well, come on then, my boy; to work, to work."

"Quite," the other Doctor said, exchanging smiles with his other self before they started walking, their various friends exchanging brief shrugs before they started to walk after the Doctors.

"So..." Barbara asked, looking uncertainly over at Jo as they walked. "How did you... end up... travelling with the Doctor?"

"Oh, I was hired as his assistant," Jo replied with a causal smile.

"Assistant?" Ian repeated, looking at the young woman in surprise. "Are you saying... someone _employed _the Doctor for something?"

"Well... he ended up working for the... the organisation that we work for after he was... stuck for a while," Jo explained, looking around herself in a slightly uncomfortable manner as she spoke. "I'm really not sure I should say much more than that; he's always told me about the dangers of possibly changing history by going into the past, and if you're all from _his _past..."

"I understand," Susan said, smiling slightly at the other girl as they walked. "Grandfather always did enjoy showing people what they were capable of; he might have made an effective teacher back home if it wasn't for the rules he would have had to teach any pupils he might possess."

"Come on, you four," the older-looking Doctor called back towards them, he and his other self walking down along the wharf towards a small door at the end. "We're almost at the source of the signal; no point slowing down now, mmm?"

Exchanging glances of familiar exasperation bred by familiarity with their strange driver's methods, the Doctor's human companions followed his granddaughter down to join the two men as they walked through a small door at the end of the wharf, under the walkway.

Easily walking through the door after the velvet-clad Doctor had used his silver tube to apparently unlock the door, revealing a small room on the other side, various brochures on the desk and a few of the shelves around the room that Barbara had no trouble identifying even with a forty-year culture gap between her time and this time.

"A tourist shop?" Barbara said, looking at the new Doctor sceptically. "Doctor, with all due respect-"

"Just a moment..." the Doctor said, slowly walking forward to better examine the currently-abandoned desk in front of him, the strange silver tube held out in front of him as he adjusted some of the settings with the hand not holding it in front of him. "Maybe... if I do _this_..."

As he removed his hand, a concealed door- disguised to look like the wall- located off to the side of the desk opened, revealing a long stone corridor that extended underground, terminating at what seemed to be a large round metal door.

"A secret base concealed in a tourist shop?" Jo said, looking at her Doctor in surprise after glancing down the newly-revealed corridor.

"Hardly the most unexpected thing you will have seen if your time with me, my dear," the old Doctor said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at her before he turned his attention back to the door. "Well, let's be off-"

"Hold it!" a voice said from behind the group, prompting them to turn around and take in the speaker; a young woman, somewhere between Jo and Barbara in age, dressed in black trousers and a tight black leather jacket over a red shirt with dark hair coming down around her shoulders, a gun held out in front of her as she looked at the six TARDIS travellers.

"Oh dear," the velvet-wearing Doctor said, raising his arms to his sides as his companions and other self did the same, looking at the woman before him in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "Look, I know that this-"

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked, her eyes grimly narrowed as she looked at the group, her gun rapidly moving from one of them to the other as though trying to determine which of them was the more dangerous. "Who are you?"

"Look, allow me to introduce ourselves," the velvet-clad Doctor said, looking slightly apologetically at the young woman. "I am the Doctor- and so is he, actually-, and these are our friends, Susan Foreman, Jo Gra-"

"Hold on; the _Doctor_?" the young woman repeated, lowering her gun slightly as she looked between the two white-haired men in front of her, her eyes wide as she processed what she'd just heard. "As in... the _Doctor _Doctor? TARDIS shaped like a police box, two hearts, last of-"

"_Stop_!" the elderly Doctor yelled, holding up a hand sharply to halt the woman's speech before she could say another word. "My dear girl, as much as we appreciate being recognised, did whatever future encounters we will have with you teach you nothing about the dangers of providing information to time-travellers ahead of schedule?"

"Uh... well, actually, we've only met once, I just... work with a couple of people who used to travel with you..." the woman said, her gun lowering further as she looked awkwardly between the small group before her. "So... you're him _before _he met me?"

"That depends," the velvet-clad Doctor said, looking at her quizzically, as though trying to place her. "Since you haven't begun by denying that we can be the Doctor, shall I assume that you are aware of our ability to regenerate?"

"Well... I haven't seen you in anything more than one body myself, but the people I work with knew you in a couple of different bodies before _I _met you..." the woman replied, looking uncertainly between the two Time Lords. "I think he said he was your... tenth self?"

"_Tenth_?" the old Doctor said, his eyebrows raised as he looked at her. "Well, that confirms it, anyway; I'm only his first self, and the other fellow over there is my third."

"Ah," the woman said, shaking her head slightly as she looked between the Doctors. "This is... unexpected."

"Time travel is often confusing when it comes to keeping things in order, my dear," the old Doctor replied reassuringly, before he glanced over at his other self with a satisfied smile. "Well, at least we know we'll make it to double figures, eh, my boy?"

"Something to be satisfied about, at any rate," the other Doctor replied in a slightly dismissive manner, even as the slight smile on his face confirmed his own satisfaction at that news before he looked seriously at the other woman. "Anyway, now that we've established each others' identities, and given that you weren't exactly surprised about that door I just opened, would I be safe in assuming that you know something about the space/time rift that exists in this city?"

"Uh... yeah, I know about it; the organisation I work for set up a facility here to keep an eye on it," the woman replied, promptly holding up a hand to halt the Doctors as they began to open their mouths to ask further questions. "Before you ask, I don't actually know how to _work _any of the equipment we use to keep an eye on the Rift beyond the basics; I just know that we _have _it. A couple of other people in the team have a better idea about how to use it, but they're away right now; I was just going to try and find out what had happened to them when I detected a Rift spike at this end that I thought I should check out, but if you don't think it's anything _serious_..."

"Well, we've both managed to use our sensors to confirm that it's an unnatural level of turbulence for your 'Rift' to be experiencing, and that it doesn't seem to be causing any immediate damage at this time, but apart from that we don't actually _know _anything yet-" the more distinguished-looking Doctor began.

"In other words, we don't know precisely what's causing it yet but what we _do _know suggests that it isn't dangerous, right?" Jo asked, looking at her Doctor with a slightly exasperatedly fond smile.

"Well... yes, essentially," the Doctor said, nodding at her in confirmation.

"So," Ian said, looking at the other woman with a slight smile, "shall we go and see if your friends can help us find the answers we're looking for, Miss...?"

"Cooper," the woman replied, holding out a hand and smiling at Ian. "Gwen Cooper; my husband Rhys Williams is still in the car."

"Uh... right," Ian said, almost asking about the different surnames before concluding that he didn't know enough about this time to feel comfortable asking that kind of question. "I'm Ian Chesterton- I came here with Barbara Wright and Susan Foreman-, and the young lady over there is Jo Grant; she came with... well, the Doctor we didn't come here with."

"Good to meet you all," Gwen said, smiling briefly at them before she indicated the small shop's door. "Well, come on, then; the sooner we pick everyone else up, the sooner we can sort out what's keeping you two here."

* * *

AN 2: Simple start, but I think it works; this chapter begins a new alternating 'pattern' between the Torchwood team, Donna, Martha, and the Tenth Doctor as they work with the Doctor's past selves to defeat various past threats before they come together to face their current enemy


	19. Return to the Planet of Evil

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: For this chapter, we return to the Tenth Doctor and his companions, as Donna begins her part of her assigned 'mission' into the Doctor's past...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As she walked down the strange corridor that the Doctor had created in the TARDIS that apparently lead to his past self's ship- Donna wondered if all this stuff about 'past lives' meant that she should be re-thinking her old views on reincarnation, even with everything that the Doctor had told her about how what he did just involved genetic reconstruction or something like that without him actually getting a _completely _new body-, Donna couldn't decide if she should be freaking out more at the fact that she was about to meet a younger version of the Doctor or the fact that she was deliberately going somewhere where something had happened that was dangerous enough to affect the Doctor in the future.

Then, of course, there was the fact that the only part of this whole mess that _really _freaked her out was that she wasn't actually that freaked out by it; she was excited, but she'd long since passed the point where she was that _surprised _at some of the strange things she'd seen and done in the Doctor's company...

The sight of a door in front of her marking the end of this bizarre corridor, coupled with the faint sound of unfamiliar voices on the other side of it, brought Donna to a halt.

This was it.

She was actually going into her friend's past...

"Well," she said to herself, shaking her head with a slight attempt at a reassuring smile to encourage herself, "no point in waiting around, eh?"

With that, she opened the door and walked into the room, revealing a white version of the control room she'd known for the last few months of her life, lacking the organic-esque pillars and also significantly smaller than the room she'd seen so often. Standing around the console were a man about the Doctor's height with fair hair, dressed in a cricket jumper and red-and-white striped trousers with a liege red-lined frock coat that- bizarrely- had a stick of celery pinned to its lapel, accompanied by a young woman with long dark blonde hair in a simple white dress carrying a satchel of some sort.

"Uh... Doctor?" Donna asked at last, looking uncertainly at the man in front of her; she might not _know _that he was the Doctor, but since she was fairly sure that the Doctor would have mentioned it if he'd been a woman in the past- coupled with the fact that the clothes he was wearing did have a certain 'Doctor-esque' look about them even if she couldn't see _her _Doctor dressing like that-, it seemed like the best bet.

"Who are you?" the girl asked, looking at Donna with a curious expression that reminded Donna somehow of a more innocent Jenny; she had the same wide-eyed, slightly childish expression of wondrous curiosity that the Doctor's briefly-lived daughter had possessed, but it was kind of hard to see this girl acting all 'G.I. Jane' on the bad guys...

"Donna Noble," she said, thoughts of the Doctor's daughter pushed aside as she held out a slightly awkward hand. "You are?"

"Amy," the girl replied, looking slightly curiously at the other woman. "Are you from the Grace?"

"The Grace?" Donna repeated, rolling her eyes. "Stupid name, and no; the Doctor sent me."

"I did?" the man in the cricket outfit asked, which at least confirmed his identity. "Which one?"

"Uh... he's a future you, if that helps..." Donna replied.

"I see," the younger Doctor replied, nodding thoughtfully before he smiled at her. "Well, pending further developments, what are you doing here, Miss Noble?"

"Uh... _you_ didn't tell me; all you'd say was that something was about to attack-" Donna began, before the entire TARDIS seemed to shake, sending Donna flying into the wall as the Doctor grabbed a hold of the console's edge, Amy simply falling to the floor as she apparently focused more on stopping her satchel falling off her shoulder rather than regaining her own balance.

"Like that?" the Doctor asked, looking over at where Donna now lay against the wall before he turned his own attention back to the TARDIS console. "Now then, let's see; according to this, there's _something _out there-"

Another violent shudder rocked the TARDIS, forcing the Doctor to tighten his grip on the console's edge before the ship stabilised again. "No time to take readings; the best chance is to materialise somewhere on the outskirts and hope that I can avoid this-"

"Hold on; you're _just _getting attacked?" Donna yelled incredulously at the Time Lord even as she tried to scramble to her feet on the shaking console room. "But I was sent here to _warn _you-!"

"Whoever we're dealing with knows enough about time travel to target me in a manner that makes it difficult for me in the future to know precisely when to send anyone here _now_; I was probably aiming for a few minutes earlier and things didn't work out..." the Doctor said, his head lowering as he focused his attention on the console. "Just a moment... _now_!"

With that, he hit a couple of switches on the console, and the familiar sound of materialisation began to fill the room, the shaking ceasing as the ship moved out of transit and into reality, leaving the two women and the Time Lord looking anxiously at each other.

"Is everyone all right?" the Doctor asked, smiling over at the other two passengers.

"Yes, I'm fine," Amy replied with a smile.

"Bit shaky, but I'll live," Donna said, shrugging slightly as she looked at the Doctor before walking around to the console just opposite the door and pulling on the large lever that she was fairly certain activated the TARDIS's door; as 'her' Doctor had told her before she'd left his ship, certain key features of the TARDIS console, such as the location of the door control, remained the same no matter what else changed in the ship.

"Now then," she said with a slight smile, turning around as the door opened, "I'll just see where we are, shall I?"

Before the Doctor could say anything, Donna had walked forward and taken a quick glance at the world now outside of the ship's door, only for the sight to quickly make her retreat back inside with a shudder. Outside the TARDIS, the blue box was currently standing in a dark jungle, with reddish leaves on the various trees, along with assorted rocks and plants that looked as though they were on the verge of death, accompanied by the occasional unearthly howl from the distance that did little to comfort her.

"Where the _Hell_?" she asked, spinning around to look at the Doctor, her momentary relief at their safe landing forgotten by the discovery of the highly unpleasant nature of their new location. "Where the Hell'd we land; planet of the dead?"

"You could say that," the Doctor said, looking up from where he'd been grimly studying the console readings. "We're on Zeta Minor, colloquially known to those who've been here as the 'Planet of Evil'."

"An evil planet?" Amy asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor (Donna had to wonder where the Doctor had found this girl; she was all for educating people, but the girl's habit of constantly looking at the Doctor for information was _ridiculously _over-the-top).

"Oh, it's not _that _bad, actually; it's just because the planet has... well, it has a bit of a bad reputation due to these incidents that took place involving the anti-matter experiments that took place here-" the Doctor began.

"_Anti-matter_?" Donna repeated, looking incredulously at the Time Lord; she might not be a science whiz, but she'd read _Angels and Demons _enough times to know the _basics _of what anti-matter was capable of...

"Anti-matter?" Amy repeated. "But isn't anti-matter interacting with matter a bad thing?"

"Oh, unbelievably bad, I assure you; even when properly contained, the consequences if it went beyond the planet were _very _dangerous..." the Doctor began, only to suddenly pause mid-sentence as he turned to walk towards the still-open TARDIS door.

"Excuse me?" Donna began, turning to glare at the Doctor before she stopped herself; she had to strain her ears to hear it, but she'd definitely heard _something _out there that sounded distinctly more artificial than the animal noises she'd heard earlier...

"Hold on..." the Doctor said, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he stepped out of the TARDIS, his head tilted to one side as he listened carefully. "Is that...?"

"Something being built?" Amy replied with a nod. "I can hear it too."

"That's bad?" Donna asked, trying to stop herself smiling about the fact that she'd heard whatever it was correctly; with something out in... whatever the TARDIS travelled through when it was travelling in time... trying to attack them, this wasn't the time to feel pride in stuff like that.

"The only thing worth extracting from Zeta Minor is the anti-matter I mentioned earlier, and removing it from Zeta Minor results in the planet's natural defences attacking everyone responsible until the anti-matter is restored in order to secure the maintenance of the natural balance between our universes!" the Doctor yelled.

"Uh... sorry, what was that about the planet's 'natural defences' attacking to maintain the 'natural balance'?" Donna asked in confusion.

"Basically, the anti-matter triggers a mutagenic effect in anyone who is exposed to it for too long, but that's not important right now," the Doctor said, waving a hand before he turned his attention back to the sound of the construction work. "All that matters right now is that we have to find out what's going on here before anyone pays the price; the _last _thing we need is for further anti-men to be released..."

"Is this really the smart thing to do?" Donna asked, indicating the TARDIS with an uncertain wave of her hand. "I mean, you were just _attacked_..."

"All the more reason to attend to this; anything powerful enough to attack the TARDIS in flight _cannot _be allowed to gain access to Zeta Minor's anti-matter," the Doctor said resolutely. "If we can dismantle the manufacturing plant before anything else gets here, we should be able to get off this planet and head for somewhere else before anyone tracking me realises the significance of this place; any scenario involving someone learning about the anti-matter here _cannot _be a good thing."

"Right," Donna said, nodding slightly at the intense resolution on the younger Doctor's face- he might not have the sheer intensity of the Doctor she knew totally perfected yet, but that didn't mean he was a pushover- as she glanced over at Amy. "Uh... sure you don't want to leave the bag?"

"I can't," Amy replied with a resolute shake of her head. "What's in it is too important for me to leave it unattended; I have to ensure its safety."

"Ah," Donna said, turning to look at the Doctor to see what he had to say about that, only to realise that he'd already started hurrying towards the sound they'd heard earlier.

"Oh for the love of- _wait up_!" she yelled as she hurried after him, Amy close behind her; did _any _Doctor know the meaning of patience?

OK, so the young guy wasn't exactly _racing _ahead- he was still close enough for her to see him; that coat was fairly visible even in the dim light, after all-, but he was still making better time than-

The sound of the Doctor grunting as he hit something prompted Donna to increase her pace, grateful that she'd gone for trousers rather than a skirt that morning- her skirts might be relatively loose these days to allow for freedom of movement, but she didn't like running in them if there was an alternative-; if the Doctor's younger self got killed because of her, she'd _really _be annoyed with herself (Assuming that she was around to be annoyed at herself if that happened; time travel was _bloody _complicated)...

"What in the _world _are you doing here?" a voice said with an obvious arrogance about it; Donna made a mental note to hit the owner of that voice if he tried to use that tone on her.

"I think the better question is what _you're _doing here; surely with both of _us _present you'd know not to come yourself-" the young Doctor's voice replied.

"Or, alternatively, it could be that he came here because he knew we needed him," a third voice said, this one sounding almost amused by the apparent argument that had been about to take place between the Doctor and the other man. "I'm not denying that this isn't awkward, but since we all know how dangerous things can be here, maybe we should-"

The speaker's voice cut off as Donna finally reached the area where the Doctor was sitting on the ground glaring at the other two people near him, their positioning giving the impression that they had literally run into each other as they were hurrying towards whatever they were heading towards. Both of the other men had a slight physical resemblance in that they were both tall with long thick curly hair, but that was as far as it went; apart from the fact that one man had brown hair while the other's was a dirty-looking blond, the brown-haired man was dressed in the slightly-normal-looking attire of a long dark red coat and hat with a massive scarf in varying shades of red wrapped around his neck, while the other man looked at least a bit overweight and was wearing yellow-and-black striped trousers and a coat that looked like it had been put together by a bunch of colour-blind tailors with a limited sense of texture.

"Who the-?" Donna began.

"_Doctor_!" two voices called from two different sides of their immediate area, followed by three more figures and- Donna couldn't stop herself staring at the sight- a _robotic dog _come hurrying into the area to join them, the new arrivals halting at the sight of the people already present.

"Brigadier?" the young Doctor said, his eyes automatically settling on the old, slightly overweight man who'd come from the same apparent direction as the man in the bad coat- Donna was shocked to recognise the man as a slightly younger Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but stopped herself before she could say anything; she was confused enough right now without trying to get answers from someone who probably hadn't met her yet (So _that's _what he'd meant when she'd seen him during that whole Sontaran affair; all that stuff about how they 'evidently' hadn't met 'yet'...)- before they shifted to the blonde woman dressed in a smart dark red jacket and dark trousers who'd shown up with the robot dog. "_Romana_?"

"You know them?" Amy asked curiously.

"_Know _them?" the man in the bad coat said, standing up and looking at Amy with a slight smile on his face that didn't fit Donna's initial impression of him. "Of course he knows them, Amy; _I _know them, so he should-"

"Hold on; you know Amy, _and _you know these sods?" Donna asked, stepping in front of the younger girl to glare at the other man; she might not know the other woman too well, but if she travelled with the Doctor that was enough for Donna at the moment. "Who the hell are _you_, mate?"

"I am the Doctor, of course," the other man replied with a pointed stare at her.

"What a coincidence," the man with the scarf said, Donna spinning around at the sound of his voice to see him smiling at her as he held out a paper bag. "I was about to say the exact same thing, and would you like a jelly baby, Miss...?"

"Donna Noble, and- _hold on a minute_!" Donna practically screeched, holding up both hands as she looked incredulously between the two curly-haired men and the Doctor she'd just met. "You mean that you two- you three- you're all _him_?"

"Look," the third additional arrival said- this one a young woman in apparently her late twenties with shoulder-length red hair dressed in a simple dark jacket and jeans, looking around at the others in irritation-, "I'm getting the impression that none of us were _expecting _to come here, but for those of us who were _expecting_ to be in Antarctica by now, could somebody tell me what's all this stuff about the Doctor and those two all being 'him'?"

"Ah... of course, Miss Aldwych, I apologise," the Brigadier said, nodding slightly at her (Donna wondered who the other woman was, but this wasn't the time to ask that; things were already getting _ridiculously _complicated for what she'd anticipated would just be a brief trip) as he indicated the cricket-clad Doctor and the man in the scarf. "Put simply, these two men here are... well, they're _also _the Doctor."

'Miss Aldwych' blinked at the Brigadier's statement.

"What?" she said incredulously.

"The Doctor is... as I'm sure the TARDIS already established to your satisfaction, he is not exactly a normal individual," the Brigadier elaborated, looking slightly awkwardly at the young woman as she stared intensely back at him. "I should mention that normally I wouldn't be telling you this without having you fill in a large amount of paperwork, but since I don't actually have _access _to that paperwork right now-"

"Could you cut to the chase, please?" the young woman asked.

"In a nutshell, the Doctor is a member of a time-travelling alien race who can change his appearance at the moment of death, and the two men in front of us are his... younger selves, correct?" the Brigadier asked, looking at the man- the _Doctor _; what the _Hell _had he been thinking wearing a coat like that?- beside him.

"Immediate two predecessors, really, although I don't recognise _her_..." the rainbow-clad Doctor said as he looked pointedly at Donna.

"Look, as I already told _him_," Donna said, impatiently indicating the Doctor she'd arrived here with, "I was sent here by your future self to warn him about someone trying to attack his past and this one's present, but then we made an emergency landing here and he wanted to check out the construction work... and what the Hell are _three _of you doin' here; I thought I was just here to warn 'im!"

"Time's tricky like that, Miss...?" the blonde woman said, looking slightly quizzically at her.

"Oh... uh, Donna Noble," Donna replied, momentarily flustered at the slightly knowing smile on the other woman's face.

"Call me Romana," the woman said, as she indicated the robotic creature beside her. "And this is K9."

"Affirmative," the robotic dog said with a slightly pleased tone, wiggling its ears as it looked up at her.

"Uh... hi," Donna said, waving awkwardly at the dog in question.

"Back up a minute; you're saying that... you two... are _him_?" Aldwych yelled, waving her hands at the other two Doctors as she looked incredulously at the Doctor she'd arrived here with. "I mean, I figured that you weren't exactly a normal guy, but _shape-shifting_-"

"It's hardly something that I do on a whim, Claire, it's a lot more complicated than that-" the multi-coloured Doctor began.

"Look, we don't have _time _for this!" Donna yelled, stepping in between the now-identified Claire and her Doctor to yell at the Time Lord. "Something just tried to _attack _that version of you-!"

"And the rest of us, actually," the badly-dressed Doctor added.

"You were attacked too?" the Doctor with the celery said in surprise.

"Not just attacked," the Brigadier said grimly. "According to the Doctor, the assault threw us completely out of Earth's part of the... Time Vortex, I believe he called it... and several centuries into our future."

"Yes, we were only intending to make a short spatial hop to Antarctica to check up a lead Claire provided us in the current crisis when something started shooting at us; I was lucky enough that my TARDIS's sensors had been through a few upgrades since I was him," the Doctor who'd apparently come here with the Brigadier said, indicating the Doctor that Donna had come here with. "I was able to reprogram the TARDIS's coordinates to divert me to another part of the Vortex before the attack could do more than scratch the old girl, but I didn't have time to pick a particular part of the vortex to travel to; I just landed here, heard the sound of construction work, and thought it best to investigate the source before things got too complicated-"

"Yes, that was basically the same as what happened to us," the Doctor in the scarf said with a slight smile. "Admittedly, that just happened after we returned to this universe after having to temporarily leave the vortex to dispose of a few things- complicated little mess with the Black Guardian; not really worth bothering about now, I promise-, and we didn't have far to go before we found somewhere to land; I was actually already aiming for this planet-"

"Look, can we _focus_, please?" Donna yelled, waving her hands in front of herself to draw attention back to the matter at hand (Honestly, these people talked more than _her_ Doctor). "Seriously, nice to meet you all, but if you want to find out what's making that noise, can we just do it and get out of here so that I don't have to worry about my time with the future you not happening?"

She knew that it wasn't the best protest she'd ever made, but she was trying to make her hopes for the current situation realistic; if there was a mystery on a planet this dangerous, she wasn't going to get the Doctors to leave it any time soon, so her best bet was just to encourage them to find out what was causing it as soon as possible so that she could get them to go somewhere safe and get herself back to her Doctor.

"Quite correct, Miss Noble," the Brigadier said, nodding at her with a slight smile before he turned to look at the Doctors. "Well, shall we proceed?"

For a moment, the three Doctors exchanged thoughtful glances with each other, and then the Doctor in the bad coat- apparently the oldest Doctor here- turned back to look at her with a slight smile.

"A crude, but essentially accurate, summary of what our main goals in this situation should be, Miss Noble," he said, smiling briefly at her before he indicated the direction that they'd come from originally. "Anyway, whatever attracted our attention is that way; we'd best be off."

With that, he turned around and began to run towards the still-faint sound of construction work once again, his other two selves hot on his heels as their assorted companions were left with no other option but to follow the Doctors, questions about what they were all doing here forced to wait until later...

Then they caught up with the Doctors as they stood at the top of a small hill, leading down into a wide open area surrounding a large, apparently deep hole- the surrounding area gave Donna the impression that someone had been at it with a large amount of shovels recently-, filled with various small buildings and what looked like a couple of flying saucers.

What particularly caught Donna's eye, however, was the fact that the only two humans she could see in the group in front of her were a man dressed in some kind of Chinese-looking robe and a black leather mask/helmet thing that completely covered his head, and another man dressed in some kind of white tunic, a grey shirt and trousers underneath it, with features that looked like some slightly exaggerated amalgamation of various ethnic groups. Everything else in the camp before them were just these strange mechanical pod-like creatures that made her think of pepperpots-

"Daleks?" Romana and the Brigadier said simultaneously, looking apprehensively at the Doctors (Not that Donna could blame them; now that she'd heard the creatures' names, she was ashamed that she hadn't recognised the creatures from the Doctor and Martha's stories herself).

"Is that... Magnus Greel?" the scarf-wearing Doctor asked, looking uncertainly at the man in the leather mask. "The outfit's certainly correct, but how can he be here...?"

"_Mavic Chen_?" the multi-coloured Doctor almost yelled, staring in shock at the man in white. "But that's _impossible_!"

"I take it those men aren't meant to be here, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked the Doctor with the celery.

"To say the least, Brigadier," the Doctor replied grimly. "Not only are we over thirty-two thousand years into the future when Chen lived in the forty-first century and Greel in the fifty-first, but I was present when both of them were _killed_."

Donna swallowed apprehensively.

_Oh, _shit, she thought to herself, allowing herself the distaste of a mental swear-word for once.

Two men who were supposed to be dead, working with the race that had destroyed the Doctor's people- even if that event apparently hadn't occurred for these Doctors yet; the sight of the Daleks angered them, but she didn't see any sign of the pain her Doctor had shown when he'd talked about the Daleks himself-, on a planet known as the 'Planet of Evil', conducting some kind of mining operation for a substance that the Doctor had already assured her was incredibly dangerous?

Even if Donna was fairly sure everyone here realised something was behind them being here- what were the odds of three different Doctors 'coincidentally' landing on this one planet at the same time from a random attack?-, this situation was definitely something that _none _of them could ignore without closer investigation...

* * *

AN 2: For reference, the Fifth Doctor is currently travelling with Amy- no connection to Amy Pond; apparently this Amy renamed herself 'Abby' in a story set after she left the Doctor so that the production team could avoid confusion between the two- during the audio trilogy "Key 2 Time", Amy being a sentient Tracer created to help him find the six segments of the Key to Time; the two of them have already found five segments, which Amy keeps in her satchel. The Fourth Doctor shown here comes from just after the novel "The Well-Mannered War"- which can be found in eBook form on the BBC Doctor Who web site-, accompanied by the second Romana and K9, while the Sixth Doctor has been diverted from mid-way through the events of the novel "The Shadow in the Glass", set in 2001, where he was accompanied by the Brigadier and journalist Claire Aldwych in investigating of a conspiracy which included the discovery that Eva Braun- the wife of Adolf Hitler, who supposedly died with him- was actually smuggled out of the country to a secret Nazi base in Antarctica, where she gave birth to Hitler's son; at the time this story begins, the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS was diverted while the three of them were trying to travel to the Nazi's base in Antarctica in Claire's present.

AN 3: Zeta Minor was the title planet in the Fourth Doctor TV story "Planet of Evil", existing on the border between the matter and anti-matter universes; the Fifth Doctor returned to the planet in the novel "Zeta Major", but details about that will be explained later.

AN 4: If you want to know more about Magnus Greel and Mavic Chen right now, feel free to look them up; information about them will be provided in the next Donna-centric chapter


	20. The Dangers of Dark Matter

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Another companion POV chapter, as Martha is sent back to meet the Doctor during a particularly difficult period in his lives (Information about the companion and situation here will be explained at the end of the chapter; I don't want to give away too many spoilers too quickly and detract from the impact these events have on Martha)...

AN 2: Some of the astrophysics-related details here come from the Eighth Doctor novel "Time Zero"- knowledge of the plot of that story isn't necessary to understand what I've done here, but I'll answer any questions anyone has if they want to know more-, but I've taken a couple of liberties to use them in a more plot-relevant manner here

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As Martha opened the door that the Doctor had told her would lead to the past Doctor's TARDIS- she was apparently being sent to his seventh self's TARDIS, according to him; if Martha recalled correctly, that was the one who'd had a Scottish accent and normally carried an umbrella-, she tried to remind herself once again that she had to be careful about what she said to the younger Doctor that she was about to meet; the fact that she'd met the _Fifth _Doctor might have given her some idea of what she could and couldn't say, but that didn't mean this wouldn't still be risky...

Her thoughts about the possible risk of temporal paradoxes were halted as she took in the sight on the other side of the door she'd just opened; a TARDIS with black walls, low lighting all around, and a console with less levers and switches on it than anything she'd seen in the Doctor's usual TARDIS.

She didn't like to judge a place based purely on atmosphere without meeting anyone- Elizabethan London had smelled, but the people had generally been nice enough (Even if that was partly thanks to her taking the Doctor's cue of _acting _like she metaphorically owned the place to discourage questions about what a woman of her skin colour was doing there; as the Doctor put it, so long as you _acted _like you should be there, people were often too busy to worry about details like why he was wearing his current attire or what colour someone's skin was), while Farringham had been far too rigid for her tastes even if it was fairly comfortable (It had been too bad she couldn't use the previously-demonstrated skills at Farringham without attracting unwanted attention to them)-, but this TARDIS actually _felt _darker than the one she knew.

Quickly shaking thoughts about what might be responsible for the Doctor travelling in a ship this to the side, Martha hurried through the doors leading to the ship's interior, her eyes quickly adjusting to the darkened corridor on the other side to fall on a partially-illuminated door a short distance from the console room.

She acknowledge that it was a bit of a leap, but it was the only sign of someone else being inside this ship, so it seemed like her best chance of finding the Doctor inside this strange new TARDIS. Walking up to the door, Martha put her ear up against it- if there was someone inside she didn't want to interrupt something important if there was a choice-, and listened for any sign of activity on the other side.

"You don't get to pretend that none of this is on your hands," an unfamiliar voice said; it was a woman, apparently a few years younger than Martha's mother judging by the pitch, with a slight accent that Martha thought might be German. "This is what you were sent here to do; it's _your _responsibility."

"I can't," a male voice replied, its distinctive Scottish accent making it easy to recognise that voice as the voice of the Doctor she'd come here to help.

"I know you can," the woman replied, a smug tone to her voice that reminded Martha uncomfortably of the Master. "Push that button. End my life."

_End my life_? Martha repeated incredulously in her head.

Now that the idea had been introduced to her thoughts, this new TARDIS did have a dark atmosphere that put her uncomfortably in mind of an execution chamber, but the thought of the Doctor being sent somewhere to _kill _someone, no matter what incarnation he was, just felt wrong to her; even when he'd told her about the time he'd been sent to change the Daleks' past, he'd explained to her that he'd been given the option of changing their evolution to make them less dangerous rather than just destroying them all at once...

"Look at it this way," the woman said, apparently unconcerned about the fact that they were discussing her death. "I'm giving you an opportunity; a chance to see who you really are."

"There's no way out of this for you, Klein," the Doctor said, his voice evidently pained to Martha's ears even if she didn't know _this _Doctor that well; some things really were almost universal over the Time Lord's incarnations no matter how much the rest of him changed. "I can't let you go. You'll grow old in here... you'll die... and the world you leave behind will be one of desolation."

"Then you know what you have to do, Doctor," 'Klein' responded with a frustratingly casual tone. "I can wait as long as it takes. As you said, we have no shortage of time."

After hearing that kind of conversation, Martha almost wasn't sure she even _wanted _to open this door; the idea of her arriving here while the Doctor was accompanied by someone he'd been assigned to _execute_...

Still, Martha had known when she'd gone into this relationship that sometimes the Doctor did things he didn't like doing in the past- and judging by that comment about a world of desolation it seemed fairly obvious that _something _bad would happen if this woman was allowed to just keep on living-, and in the end it didn't really matter; the Doctor might not always do the most straightforwardly 'right' thing, but he always tried to do what would save lives unless every other option was exhausted.

Right now, she had to deal with the more immediate matter of alerting this Doctor to the threat he was about to face; hopefully, since they were apparently talking fairly civilly, 'Klein' wouldn't actually try and attack her to use as a hostage against the Doctor or something like that...

Opening the door, Martha quickly took in the sight of the room in front of her- a simple room with slightly brighter-than-normal roundels and a single button on a wall- before her gaze settled on the other two people in the room. One of them was the Doctor she'd come here expecting to find- a man slightly shorter than herself, wearing a cream jacket, brown trousers and a red waistcoat, a straw hat on his head and a black umbrella with a thick red handle in the shape of a question-mark over his arm, although his clothing seemed to be slightly tattered as though he hadn't had a chance to change for a while-, but the other was a stranger to her; a woman with short blonde hair in her mid to late forties, dressed in a dark suit/uniform of some kind, looking at her with a slightly condescending manner that made Martha uncomfortably feel like she was back in Farringham all over again.

"And who is this?" the woman asked, raising an eyebrow as she glanced back at the Doctor.

"I don't-" the Doctor began, before he stopped himself mid-sentence as he looked thoughtfully at her, an uncertain expression of recognition on his face. "Wait a minute... I _do _know you..."

"Martha Jones," Martha replied, nodding slightly at him, grateful that she remembered which order each Doctor came in (She didn't like to think of them by numbers as it made a part of her feel that she was 'rating' them according to experience, but sometimes it _was _the easiest way to keep track of who was who). "I travel with your tenth incarnation, but we met briefly in your fifth when the two of you... well, ran into each other-"

"Oh yes, the incident where we nearly tore a Belgium-sized hole in reality..." the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment before he remembered that he wasn't the only other person in the room. "Oh, this is Doctor Elizabeth Klein; Klein, this is-"

"Doctor Martha Jones," Martha finished for the Doctor- she'd apologise for interrupting later, but since she hadn't been officially qualified back when she'd met the Fifth Doctor it was best to clarify that things had change for her since then herself-, walking over to give the older woman a brief, professional handshake; she might have to be polite, but that didn't mean that she had to _like _talking to someone who had done something so terrible that the Doctor saw no other way to deal with what she had done other than killing her. "As I said, I'll travel with him in the future."

"Really?" Klein said, looking between the Doctor and Martha with a slight smile. "Your standards for companionship really do vary, Doctor-"

"We can discuss this later, Klein," the Doctor countered, glaring over at her with a pointed stare. "If Doctor Jones is here, I will assume that she had some purpose beyond a straightforward visit, and I for one would like to know what that is sooner rather than later."

"You're about to be attacked by something from the time I'm from- or something like that, anyway- and the Doctor I know sent me back here to warn-" Martha began, before the TARDIS suddenly shook around them, causing the group to stagger over into the nearest wall before it stabilised.

"What the-?" Martha began.

"Looks like your attempts to 'warn' us were a bit pointless, Doctor Jones," Klein said, a slight sarcasm around her title that Martha definitely didn't like. "So much for coming here to _help_ us, mmm?"

"On the contrary, Klein," the Doctor said, looking over at the woman with a brief glare before he hurried for the door. "If I'm right, Doctor Jones's presence here may have already proven beneficial."

"What?" Martha asked, hurrying after the Doctor as he returned to the console room, Klein following behind with a slightly bored curiosity on her face; Martha suspected that she was only following them out of a lack of anything else to do with herself.

"Anything powerful enough to attack me now with such severity that I would feel it in my future should know enough about what a TARDIS can take to know what it would require to really damage this ship; if our enemies had attacked in force, we would probably be dead or immobilised already," the Doctor explained, as they reached the console room and he began to rapidly activate the necessary controls. "By travelling back from my future to this point, Doctor Jones created a temporal 'ripple' that would draw any other temporally-capable ships in the immediate vicinity towards me in this time, which evidently included the ships that were about to attack us; the ripple must have caused them to fire their weapons before they were fully charged and ready to actually cause _serious _damage-"

"OK, so... because of some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey 'thing', I made the people who were _going _to attack you attack before they were ready?" Martha interjected, looking at the Doctor with a familiarly warm feeling of exasperation; no matter where she went, it seemed like the Doctors would always like to 'show off' if they had the time.

"Wibbly wobbly...?" Klein said, looking over at Martha with an almost condescending smile. "What a... charming turn of phrase-"

"Look, _he _came up with it- or he _will _come up with it, anyway-, and if you can't come up with something better-!" Martha began, the danger of the current situation forgotten in the face of the older woman's dismissive arrogance (Who the hell _was _she, anyway?).

"_Hold on_!" the Doctor's voice suddenly yelled, just before the TARDIS suddenly seemed to go into a spin; Martha momentarily felt the blood rush to her head as though the entire console room had turned upside-down before she felt normal once again.

"What the-?" Martha began.

"Someone's setting off dark matter bombs in the vortex!" the Doctor yelled, looking up from the console in shock. "But that's _impossible_..."

"Dark matter bombs?" Klein repeated. "I've never heard of those."

"You wouldn't have; they're a very rare and complicated piece of technology involving a particle that most people don't even know exists," the Doctor explained. "Dark matter is part of the fundamental building blocks of the universe, with nascent atoms of it existing in all matter to some degree; given the right trigger, these atoms can develop into full-on black holes, but that's not recommended even if you find out about them."

"Let me guess, they were banned for moral reasons due to the devastation they can cause?" Klein asked (The way she phrased that question alone confirmed for Martha that she wouldn't like this woman; the idea that she could speak so scathingly of morality proved that she wasn't the kind of person the Doctor would have normally travelled with).

"They were _banned _for reasons relating to the danger they pose to the structure of the time vortex," the Doctor corrected grimly, even as he continued to manipulate the controls of this TARDIS with a quick familiarity that only Martha's long experience with her Doctor allowed her to see was slightly slower than it should have been (Clearly the Doctor wasn't used to this 'new' TARDIS). "Intense sources of gravity and mass distort time and space, and dark matter bombs can cause a particular disruption to reality if they're set off in the right place, such as a crack in reality..."

"Or in the time vortex itself?" Martha finished, already seeing where the Doctor was going with this explanation.

"Precisely," the Doctor responded, tapping the last few controls on the console before him before pulling another lever. "We're going to have to materialise until I can track the source of these bombs; hold on!"

As soon as he spoke, Martha felt the sound of the ship rematerialising, accompanied by the solemn thud as the ship settled back into the real world.

"So," Klein said, looking back at the Doctor with a slight smile. "I shall assume that we've landed back in the real universe?"

"According to the console, yes," the Doctor replied with a brief nod. "Britain, to be precise; 7th November, 1987, London..."

He smiled slightly as he looked up at Klein, even if the grim expression still in his eyes made it clear to Martha that he wasn't entirely happy about this turn of events. "And, from what I read about your world's history, we are definitely _not _in that timeline."

"What?" Klein said, looking scathingly at him. "After everything you said about how my _death _was necessary-"

"The dark matter explosions must have shifted us slightly into some part of the true timeline that remains," the Doctor clarified. "You can't _totally _erasethe history that should exist in your home reality, Klein; all you can do is set things up so that another timeline takes 'precedent' in the reality of your origin, even if it's still highly dangerous-"

"Let's not start that again, Doctor," Klein cut in, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the Doctor. "We are clearly never going to agree, so-"

"Look, as long as we're here, maybe we could..." Martha began, before her eyes fell on a nearby screen that was displaying some Gallifreyian text. "Uh, Doctor?"

"What?" the Doctor asked, looking back at her.

"Well, I'm still learning the language, but what I can read here seems to be saying something about a 'wound' in reality centred on this location?" Martha said, awkwardly indicating the screen in front of her. "It might just be some side-effect of those dark matter bombs you mentioned, but-"

"Excuse me..." the Doctor said, walking around to study the screen in question before he looked up at Martha in approval. "Well, your knowledge of Gallifreyian is impressive, Doctor Jones. According to this, there is indeed a _wound _in reality in the immediate vicinity; damage caused by dark matter bombs would cause a _tear_, not a wound."

"And that's relevant?" Klein asked scathingly.

"Considering that a tear is what would result from someone _changing _history, than yes," the Doctor confirmed, looking back at Klein for a moment before he sighed and activated the controls to open the doors. "Well, we'd best be off; are you two coming?"

"Both of us?" Martha said in surprise; she was grateful to be included, but she hardly trusted Klein based on their admittedly brief acquaintance so far...

"I'm not leaving anyone alone in this ship at a time like this," the Doctor said, glancing once more at a screen before he turned towards the door. "Come on, then; we're only a few hundred metres from the wound."

She and Klein exchanged suspicious glances as the three of them left the TARDIS, but Martha's attention was soon focused more on keeping up with the Doctor as he hurried along the streets- so similar to the London she knew apart from the lack of satellite dishes or the old-fashioned cars-, only peripherally aware of the other woman's presence as she stayed alongside Martha and the Doctor...

Then the Doctor rounded a corner and almost ran into another man hurrying out from a nearby ally, and things became suddenly more complicated.

"_You_?" the two men yelled incredulously at each other as they took a step back from each other, Martha quickly recognising the new arrival just as she'd recognised the Doctor she'd just met.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked.

"What am I- what are _you_ doing here, is the more appropriate question?" the other man countered. "I'm already in trouble with the Agency as it is; the last thing I need is _you _showing up-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt what I'm sure would be a _fascinating_ conversation," Klein interrupted, a smile on her face that Martha knew meant that she wasn't sorry at all, "but might I inquire about the identity of this... man?"

"Klein, you remember what I told about regeneration, I assume?" the Doctor asked, looking over at her with a grim smile as he indicated the man in front of him, argument/debate with the new arrival seemingly forgotten. "Doctor Klein, Doctor Jones, allow me to present my second incarnation; I am the seventh version of myself, by the way-"

"He's your _past _self?" Klein said, looking at the newly-arrived Doctor with a superior sense of disdain that Martha wished she had the time to punch off the other woman's face. "You haven't improved with age-"

"And this is hardly the time or place for discussion, my dear; the Countess's forces are-!" the younger Doctor began.

"The _Countess_?" the Doctor Martha had arrived with said, looking at his other self in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Serena and I were just on our way back-" the young Doctor began, before the faint sound of an explosion suddenly reached their ears, followed by a sudden burst of what looked like smoke in the distance.

"Oh no..." the Doctor said, his eyes wide with horror as he looked at his younger self. "Temporal overlap?"

"I'm still trying to work out the cause, but essentially yes," the almost tramp-like Doctor replied with an affirmative nod. "I don't think the Countess has realised what's happening yet- her temporal senses are limited inside reality as far as I can tell-, but-"

"_Doctor_!" another voice yelled, as a beautiful young blonde woman wearing an elegantly casual-looking gold-and-white dress that seemed more suited for an earlier century ran towards them, looking urgently at the man with the Beatles-style haircut. "Something's attacking the Countess's-!"

She suddenly turned around to look at the new arrivals, her eyes fixing on the Doctor with the umbrella in horror. "_You_?"

"Hello, Serena," the older Doctor replied, the slight smile on his face as he looked back at her only slightly let down by the slight hint of sorrow Martha saw in his eyes; clearly something would happen to this woman in the future that the Doctor didn't want her to know about.

"But... _you _can't be here!" Serena yelled, before she turned to look at the Doctor she'd apparently arrived here with in frustration. "Doctor, I respect your knowledge of fieldwork, but bringing in a future version of yourself is violating so many rules I can't even _count _them right now; as your supervisor-"

"Supervisor?" Klein repeated, smirking in a self-satisfied manner as she looked at Serena before turning to the umbrella-carrying Doctor. "So, it would appear that-"

"_Shut up_!" Martha yelled, stepping between Klein and the Doctor to glare at the other woman. "God, what is _wrong _with you? The Doctor's just trying to figure out what's going on and all you can do is-"

"He was going to execute me when I was doing nothing but trying to restore the world that _he_ destroyed; I am-" Klein began.

"That world should never have been, Klein," the Scottish-sounding Doctor said grimly, staring back at her with a cold authority in his voice. "If there was a way I could give you the world you came from without destroying the one that should have been, I would have, but-"

"_Look out_!" Serena suddenly yelled, grabbing the Scottish Doctor and Klein and pulling them out of the way just as a creature that looked like a large grey dragon suddenly dived down from the sky, nearly catching Klein in its talons before the other woman's intervention.

"Oh goodness gracious me!" the younger Doctor said, looking after the creature in surprise. "What was that?"

"A Reaper..." Martha whispered, her eyes wide with shock at the sight of the creature she'd seen in the TARDIS databanks during a long-ago conversation with the Doctor; in the months after the Year That Never Was, they'd talked quite a bit about most of the Doctor's adventures with some of the past companions Martha had met during the Year, but somehow his stories of some of the encounters he'd had with Rose had stuck in her mind more prominently than the others.

"A what?" Klein asked, looking sharply over at Martha. "How can _you _know what that is?"

"Because- wait a minute..." Martha began to say before she cut herself off mid-thought, a horrible thought suddenly occurring to her.

A wound in time _and_ Reapers attacking London in 1987?

Martha may not recall the exact date that her Doctor had said he'd been visiting when he encountered these things, but the year and location were definitely right...

"Is something wrong?" Serena asked, breaking into Martha's train of thought.

"Did you see a church anywhere nearby?" Martha asked, looking urgently at the two new arrivals.

"Well, yes; just back that way-" Serena's Doctor began.

"Good," Martha said, nodding resolutely before she looked around at the rest of the group. "We need to get going; those things are dangerous, but there _should _be someone in that church who can help us."

"'Should'?" Klein repeated, shaking her head as she looked condescendingly at Martha. "Just because those buildings are meant to offer sanctuary, Miss Jones-"

"_Doctor_ Jones, thank you," Martha replied, glaring curtly back at Klein before she turned to look at the Doctors. "And there's more to it than that, anyway; it's a long story, but I'll just say that those Reaper things _can't _attack you- or at least find it more difficult to attack you- if you're hiding in something old, and churches are-"

The sound of a bomb falling nearby cut off Martha's explanation, leaving her to glance over in shock as a house suddenly went up in flames. "What the-?"

"Ah, that would be the Countess's forces beginning to emerge into our reality- the temporal overlap that I mentioned earlier-, but this isn't the time to point fingers," the younger Doctor said, a slightly awkward yet apologetic smile on his face as he looked at his future companions and future self. "The point is that we're currently facing a two-way assault that we need to resolve as quickly as possible, and Doctor Jones here seems to have some knowledge of what we're dealing with, we should probably go along with her suggestion; a church _would _be better protected than most locations in the immediate vicinity, anyway..."

"Thanks," Martha said, smiling briefly at the Doctor before she waved back towards the direction that the two new arrivals had come from. "Lead on, MacDuff."

As they ran towards the church that the Doctor had mentioned, Martha's eyes scanned the skies for further Reapers, unsure if she should hope for more or hope that they wouldn't show up as the tall spire of the building they were looking for drew into view; if she was right about where and when they were, she was about to meet the one person she'd always hoped that she'd never have to see again...

"The door's locked!" Serena yelled as she tried the handle of the church door.

"Right then; excuse me, please!" the Beatles-esque Doctor said, pulling out a small penlight-like device and aiming it at the door, followed by the slight click of a lock changing. "Right, that's sorted; everyone-!"

Before he could finish his sentence, the door was opened from inside the church, revealing a short-haired man in the simple leather jacket that Martha had only seen briefly in a dream over a year ago.

Despite the mood of the current situation, Martha allowed herself a relieved smile, her past concerns about the current situation forgotten in favour of the positives of this turn of events.

This situation might have become _extremely _complicated now, but at least she had a decent amount of Doctors to deal with it.

"Oh, _great_," the Ninth Doctor said, rolling his eyes as he took in the people standing in front of him, clearly not sharing Martha's relief at this turn of events. "As if things aren't complicated enough, _you two _have to show up?"

* * *

AN 3: Obscure Companion Explanation: Serena, AKA Lady Serenadellatrova, was a Time Lady who travelled with the Second Doctor in the novel "World Game" when she was assigned by the Celestial Intervention Agency to act as the Doctor's 'supervisor' when he was captured by the Time Lords after the events of "The War Games" and forced to act as their agent in exchange for his original sentence of execution for interference in the affairs of the universe being lifted in place of the exile he would receive. At the time they appear here, the Doctor and Serena have been diverted from their attempt to travel to the day before the Battle of Waterloo after witnessing a reality where the Duke of Wellington was assassinated by the Countess- one of the Players, a race of beings who manipulate history for the thrill of it- as part of her plan to help Napoleon win the wars. Klein, by contrast, is from the Big Finish audio series, and originates from a world where the Doctor and Ace's arrival at Colditz in 1944 ("Colditz") unintentionally resulted in them providing the Nazis with the means of refining uranium- and thus developing the nuclear bomb- before the Allies; a future version of the Doctor created by that change in history managed to manipulate events in this new timeline so that Klein would go back and indirectly warn his past self about what he had to do to repair history. The Doctor later allowed Klein to travel with him in the hope that he could help her find a new place in this world ("A Thousand Tiny Wings"), but she stole the TARDIS ("Survival of the Fittest") and created a world where the Fourth Reich lasted until 2044; at the time Martha arrived, the Doctor, using a new TARDIS provided by the Agency, was faced with the task of erasing Klein from history to undo the damage she had done ("The Architects of History").

Of course, you can probably guess when this takes place for the Ninth Doctor, but be warned; things in this timeline are going to get _very _complicated before they get better...


	21. Seeking Compassion

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Back to the Tenth Doctor, as he visits a _very _particular incarnation of himself...

AN 2: To cut off questions in advance- as this is one chapter where advance knowledge is _vital _to understand what's happening-, for the Eighth Doctor, this takes place shortly after the novel "The Space Age". At this point, the Eighth Doctor- having recently lost the TARDIS when it apparently exploded in a dimensional rift (Although later stories revealed that it would go on to put itself back together)-, along with his companion Fitz Krenier- a sixties slacker/singer who started travelling with the Doctor after his mother was killed; the situation was such that Fitz would have been accused of the other deaths that resulted if he'd remained- are on the run from the Time Lords in their other companion Compassion, who was mutated into the Type 102 TARDIS via a complicated chain of events; Compassion is capable of 'opening up' to admit others to the TARDIS that is located inside her and her chameleon circuit allows her to change her appearance and clothing, but she is still capable of independent thought and motion, to the point where she can pilot herself if she has to (Although it's still easier for her to get around when guided by the Doctor). As part of the Time Lords' efforts to prepare for a Future War that the Doctor's recently learned about that will be waged against a currently-unidentified Enemy- the Doctor has encountered evidence of this war and has twice become involved in some of the War's campaigns, but he's tried to avoid learning specific details so he isn't tempted to change history-, Romana, now in her third incarnation and President of Gallifrey, seeks to use Compassion to create the next generation of TARDISes, the Doctor and Fitz going on the run in order to protect Compassion from becoming a slave until Romana could be made to see that the future had multiple possibilities beyond using an innocent woman as breeding stock. During the events of "The Space Age", the three of them encountered a higher-dimensional being known as the Maker who had created an entire city on a deserted planetoid in the thirtieth century for a group of humans who had tried to help it after it 'crash-landed' on Earth in the 1960s, the story concluding with the Doctor convincing the Maker to send some of the people it had brought to that time back home while others stayed in the future to join the rest of the human race, as they were ill-equipped to cope with the Maker's world (Which was based around a 1960s idea of what the future would be like rather than a reality that human beings could cope with), but sending them back would have erased their memories and the personal growth they'd experienced of their time.

AN 3: For convenience's sake, the Tenth Doctor will just be referred to as 'the Doctor' while the Eighth will be identified as such, and the same applies for all subsequent chapter and encounters; past Doctors will always be identified by their numbers while the Tenth will just be referred to as the Doctor

The Legacy of Gallifrey

With Donna and Martha having departed for their own respective destinations, the Doctor turned his attention to the more difficult calculation of his own destination; a location that was recorded nowhere but in his own rather uncertain memory of that period of his life, a period that was one of the darkest times in his own personal development as he faced the universe without the comfort and companionship of his oldest friend for the first time...

Plus, of course, the fact that he was on the run from his own people- and one of his oldest and dearest friends- to try and delay or stop them becoming the monsters he'd seen in a future that he knew _should _happen even as he refused to accept the fact that it would wasn't exactly comforting to remember, particularly when the way that mess had ended was brought to mind; as much as he knew there wasn't anything he could have done differently.

Then again, that was probably why their unknown enemy had chosen to attack him at this point; like their decision to attack his seventh self while he was travelling with Klein, they'd specifically chosen a time period where he was already going through various personal difficulties to strike at him (He supposed that he should just be grateful that they'd only gone after his fifth self during the search for the Key to Time, although with the only really viable alternative target being his fifth self's brief reign as the 'Supremo'- every other occasion where he'd had issues like that in that body had been resolved fairly quickly; even his grief over having to kill Ichtar and the other Silurians had been pushed aside once he'd accepted the necessity of it- it made a lot more sense; who wanted to attack someone who controlled that kind of army?).

It was a good thing he'd managed to dig up that old Stattenheim remote control, really; he might have to meet his past self, but he didn't want to give himself too much information about his future, particularly when it concerned the fact that his TARDIS wasn't as destroyed as he thought it was at this point. With this device, all he had to do was establish the link to his past self's current TARDIS, send himself back there, and then activate the Stattenheim remote when he could use the ship again without alerting his past self to its continued existence ahead of schedule (Automatic memory-erasure in the presence of a future self would only go so far when they were both operating outside of the 'authority' of the Time Lords).

"Sorry, old girl," he said, patting the TARDIS apologetically with one hand as he entered the last necessary temporal equations with the other, "but this isn't something I can really afford to take chances with."

As the familiar reassuring hum of the TARDIS momentarily grew louder in acknowledgement of his apology, the door he'd been waiting for opened, leaving the Doctor to pick up the small silver device in question from the console before he hurried over to the door, opening it and beginning his walk down the corridor before he pressed the switch to activate the remote control. As he heard the TARDIS begin to dematerialise on the other side of the door he'd just walked through, he allowed himself a brief smile as he sent his old ship a reassuring mental message, before he continued walking down the corridor, pipes and valves beginning to emerge from the walls around him as the corridor became part of its destination rather than its point of origin, finally arriving at the door at the other end.

Opening the door with a casual smile, he instantly found himself above the dark void that represented Compassion's subconscious blackness, the stone platform in front of him currently occupied by the familiar velvet-clad form of one of his longest-running bodies, the slightly rough-around-the-edges form of Fitz Krenier, with his five o'clock shadow and long leather coat providing a contrast to the Victorian-esque elegance of his eighth body's frock coat and waistcoat.

"What the-?" Fitz said, looking at him incredulously as the door closed behind him and subsequently vanished into nothing.

"Should I- _what_?" Compassion's voice began to say around them, clearly confused at the sudden intrusion into her interior. "Who the-?"

"I was wondering that myself," the Eighth Doctor said, before he walked over to his other self with a slight smile. "Hello there; shall I assume that I'm addressing the Doctor?"

"You'd be correct in that assessment, Doctor," the Doctor replied, shaking his other self's offered hand with a broader smile before he looked over at the companion who'd stood by him through one of the most difficult periods of his life. "No need to worry, Fitz; whatever problems you're having with the rest of the Time Lords right now, I assure you, I'm on his side."

"After all," the Eighth Doctor added, placing a companionable hand on his shoulder, "if I can't trust me, who can I trust?"

"Uh... you're saying... this guy's... _you_?" Fitz said at last, uncertainly indicating the Doctor. "Is this that... regeneration, changing-your-body thing you mentioned?"

"Oh yes; this fellow's me... how many bodies from now?" the Eighth Doctor began, before looking quizzically at his future self.

"Just two," the Doctor replied with a nod, before the smile faded from his face. "And as much as I'd like to say that this was a simple social call, we've got urgent business; something's about to attack you-"

"_Watch out_!" Compassion's voice suddenly yelled, the sentient TARDIS suddenly jolting to the side with such force that all three of her inhabitants were nearly thrown into her console.

"What happened?" the Eighth Doctor asked, quickly regaining his balance as he quickly moved over to the TARDIS controls.

"WarTARDIS!" Compassion's voice yelled. "The Maker's actions must have created more space-time ripples than we'd anticipated; the Time Lords must have come to investigate-"

"_Move_!" the Doctor yelled, hurrying over to another console as he looked urgently at his other self. "What are you waiting for; find somewhere else to land and lose them!"

"Uh... is there a problem?" Fitz asked, looking uncertainly at the new Doctor.

"You mean, aside from the fact that you're not _meant _to be found by the Time Lords at this point?" the Doctor said, looking urgently over at Fitz. "I assure you, I have _no _interest in ceasing to exist just because I accidentally changed my own history-"

"Hang on!" Compassion yelled, shaking violently once again as another blast struck her (The Doctor couldn't recall the Time Lords firing at him this much when they'd _actually _caught up with him shortly before they materialised on the Edifice; what was prompting the intensity of this attack?). "I think I've found somewhere to materialise!"

Although the sound of materialisation swiftly began to fill the ship, the Doctors barely had enough time to exchange relieved glances before Compassion violently shuddered, followed by the two Doctors and Fitz suddenly experiencing a falling sensation as their feet lost contact with the ground before they fell to the floor of the console room in a heap.

"What the-?" Fitz began, looking anxiously over at his Time Lord friends.

"Just let me check this..." the Eighth Doctor said, as he and his future self hurried over to examine Compassion's consoles before they looked back at each other.

"Oh no..." the Doctors said simultaneously.

"What?" Fitz asked.

"Transduction barriers have been erected around this planet," the Eighth Doctor clarified, looking apprehensively at his friend. "We can't leave; for all intents and purposes, Compassion is currently grounded."

"And," the Doctor added grimly, "as if that wasn't enough, there's definite evidence that there's been a developed civilisation here recently, but there's also _no _trace of sentient life- or, indeed, _any _kind of life- within range of Compassion's sensors..."

"And I'm not seeing anything in the area either, if anyone's interested," Compassion's voice added, sounding slightly frustrated as she spoke.

"Oh, right," the Doctor said, looking apologetically up at the ceiling. "I apologise; it's... been a while since I travelled with you; I'm used to just looking for myself-"

"What?" the Eighth Doctor asked, looking sharply up at his future self. "You mean that-"

"I mean that the current situation was resolved _without _Romana making Compassion a slave; just trust that I wouldn't have parted ways with her if I didn't think she could look after herself, please," the Doctor said, looking pointedly over at his past self before he turned back to addressing the roof. "In any case, now that we're here, our best chance is probably to do what we can about finding the source of the transduction barriers; I don't suppose your sensors can tell us anything about that, Compassion?"

"A few unusual power readings for an abandoned city, but nothing that couldn't just be whoever was here before leaving the lights on after whatever happened happened," Compassion responded.

"Right then," the Eighth Doctor said, nodding at the ceiling before he looked over at his friend and his other self. "Well, it looks like there's nothing else to do but take a look and hope for the best; shall we?"

After receiving the expected nods from the other two men- resignation from Fitz and anticipation from the Doctor; even in this kind of situation, his desire to explore could not be dampened-, the Eighth Doctor activated Compassion's doors and walked out of his friend, the other two men close behind him.

Compassion had materialised on a street corner of a futuristic city surrounded by large buildings, each one easily at least ten stories high, made of a silver-black metal that seemed to almost absorb the sunlight that was shining down on it. There was no sign of windows on any of the buildings, but doors were visible at street level, and there were strange, Chinese-like symbols painted on the walls at varying points, spread out so that there were approximately four or five of them on each building, contradicting the general appearance that city had been built based on a 'function over form' principle. Tall metal poles topped by metal spheres were spaced out along the streets approximately five metres apart from each other, a burst of what seemed to be electricity but was probably some other form of energy occasionally 'jumping' between them. The occasional vehicle was visible along the streets, each one resembling a classic 'hovercar' in design, but otherwise the entire city appeared deserted; a few of the doors on both vehicles and buildings were actually hanging open, as though something had happened that forced people to retreat from this city at a rapid rate without worrying about issues like closing the doors behind them.

"Whoa..." Fitz said, looking around himself with a slight apprehension in his stance; clearly he recognised the similarities between their current location and the city that the Maker had created, even if the symbols on the walls made it clear that whoever was responsible for this place had more imagination than the Maker.

"Oh dear..." the Eighth Doctor said, swallowing slightly as he took in the buildings, his eyes flicking from symbol to symbol as he confirmed his initial assessment. "We're on Quamtaan."

"Is that bad?" Fitz asked.

"Well, up to a _point_, it could be worse," the Doctor replied, trying to sound encouraging as he looked at his eighth incarnation's companion and the man that he himself considered one of the best friends he'd had in any of his incarnations. "At this time, there's nobody here for us to worry about innocents getting caught in any potential crossfire- the entire population pretty much wiped each other out in a war a couple of centuries ago; they each developed bombs capable of destroying living tissue without harming artificial structures without realising that the other side was following the same line of research, and the subsequent blast virtually wiped each side out-, but there's also a not-insignificant amount of technology available for the Time Lords to use to power the transduction barriers; finding out what we need to shut everything down isn't exactly going to be easy..."

"Well, it would be for one of us," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling slightly at his future self. "With _two _of us working on it, however-"

The Eighth Doctor's thoughts on their next course of action were cut short when he and the Doctor suddenly looked sharply around themselves, their hands rising to touch their temples as they looked apprehensively at their other self.

"Do you...?" the Eighth Doctor asked.

"Oh yes," the Doctor said, nodding grimly as he looked back at his past self (He hadn't felt this for ages, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten it; something like this created the kind of temporal impression you didn't easily forget). "They're coming..."

"What's coming?" Fitz asked, looking in frustrated confusion at his friends. "What are you-?"

Fitz's queries were cut off as four large vehicles appeared out of thin air around them, their presence creating a vague impression of foreboding to the Doctors' telepathic senses that they quickly recognised.

"WarTARDISes..." the Eighth Doctor said, looking apprehensively at his friends before his gaze settled on his future self. "I take it you don't remember _this _happening to us?"

"Not even a little bit," the Doctor replied, his expression grim as he looked over at his younger self. "Which means, of course, that you _cannot _allow yourself to be captured; there's enough trouble going on here as it is without me having to worry about _this _happening right now-"

He quickly silenced himself as one of the vehicles opened and a figure dressed in the familiar uniforms of the Gallifreyian chancellory guard walked out of it, his weapon aimed at the four people in front of him, followed by a woman with a wide face and close-cropped black hair in elegant gold robes.

"Oh no..." the Doctor said, his eyes widening at the sight of the dark-haired woman in front of them. "_Romana_?"

"Doctor?" Romana said, looking at him in surprise, before her eyes narrowed with a slight smile. "Well well... this _is _an unexpected bonus..."

The Doctor barely allowed himself the chance to think about his actions before he charged forward, punching Romana in the face with a blow that belied his usual reluctance to engage in combat.

"_Run_!" he said, turning to look urgently at his past self. "Take Compassion and _get out of here_!"

"But I can't _leave_-!" the Eighth Doctor began.

"I said _RUN_!" the Doctor roared, before he turned around to aim his sonic screwdriver at the other surrounding WarTARDISes, a quick flick of the switch locking the doors from outside- it wouldn't delay the other Time Lords long, but it would buy them the few minutes they needed right now- before he turned around to tackle Romana's guard, parrying the other man's attempt to punch him even as his own blow was deflected (He _really _wished he was in his third body right now; that man might have had a few issues as far as his occasional attitude towards others went, but he could be a real 'jack-of-all-trades' when the situation required action).

The following few minutes were more of a blur of physical activity as he struggled with the guard in front of him, trying to gain any kind of advantage in this conflict he'd impulsively initiated- he wasn't even really trying to _do _anything; he just had to keep the guard busy-, but he still wasn't surprised when he found himself forced to his knees with his hands bound behind his back a few moments later.

He might have beaten the Sycorax leader shortly after his regeneration, but he'd been able to mentally prepare himself for that particular fight; he didn't have that advantage here.

"So, Doctor," Romana said, the cool professionalism of her third face invoking memories of the blunt attitude of her first self rather than the more open, caring manner of her second one as she stared at him, "you came back to aid your other self in his foolish escape, I take it?"

"Romana," the Doctor said- it might not do any good, but he had to at least _try _and talk to her-, "you don't want to do this; this isn't you-"

"Gallifrey's survival in the War is all that matters, Doctor," Romana said, her eyes narrowed as she looked at him thoughtfully. "And given what _you _might have to tell us about the War..."

As he looked back at the woman who had once meant so much more to him than another companion, the sounds of doors opening around him as the Time Lords overrode his attempt to lock the TARDISes, the Doctor's hearts felt cold in his chest.

He was stuck on an abandoned planet, facing people who he _knew _were going to die when he could do nothing to change history or alert them to their fate, almost certainly about to be tortured by one of his oldest friends, and his only hope for escape was a past version of himself.

Despite his grim thoughts, the Doctor smiled.

_Tricky situation_, he mused, _but _definitely _not an impossible one..._

* * *

AN 4: Just to clarify, the Romana portrayed here is her _third _incarnation, featured in the novels "The Shadows of Avalon" and "The Ancestor Cell", and apparently physically based on Louise Brooks; she regenerated into a new form because she felt that her previous incarnation was ill-suited to lead the Time Lords in the Future War, and became obsessed with capturing Compassion despite the Doctor's appeals for to recognise the importance of Compassion's individual rights in the current situation.


	22. Putting the Fragments Together

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Back to Torchwood and the First and Third Doctors, as Gwen and her new allies respond to Ianto's message and rescue her teammates from a certain explosive attack

AN 2: Since this chapter is mostly told from Ian's POV, I feel it appropriate to let you know in advance that he will generally refer to the First Doctor as 'the Doctor' and the Third as 'the other Doctor', since he knows the First Doctor best

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As the car that Gwen Cooper had directed them to pulled to a halt, Ian couldn't help but shudder slightly at the sight in front of them; it might not match the scale of devastation he'd witnessed on Skaro, Mirath or Marinus, but the fact that the people they had come here to help were apparently inside a building that looked that structurally unsound even without all the rubble lying around it made it clear that something bad had happened here.

"Oh no..." Gwen whispered, her eyes wide with horror at the sight.

"And you're certain that this is the location your colleagues were heading for?" the other Doctor- Ian still couldn't quite believe it; how could the Doctor he knew be a _younger _version of this new man?- asked, looking at Gwen Cooper inquiringly.

"It... matches the location Ianto texted to me, anyway," Gwen confirmed with a grim nod- Ian was just grateful he'd stopped himself showing too much surprise when she'd showed them her phone; it really was amazing how technology could advance in just a few decades-, before she sighed slightly. "And... well, we tend to attract this kind of attention."

"Look on the bright side, Ms Cooper; in my experience, when people go to this much effort to get your attention, you must be doing something right," the other Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at her (The idea of the Doctor _liking _attention was something new to Ian; what had happened to the man who went to so much effort to blend into the past and always tried to avoid getting involved unless he had to?) before he assumed a more professional expression. "Now then, how many are we looking for?"

"Five," Gwen replied. "Captain Jack Harkness- he's our boss, and he travelled with... well, a future you-, Leela- she also travelled with you... in your future, I mean-, Toshiko Sato's our computer expert, Owen Harper's our doctor, and Ianto Jones... well, he doesn't have a _specific _job; he just fills in when we need backup and someone to clean up the evidence we might leave behind."

"Very well then," Ian's Doctor said, turning to look at the group around them. "In that case, we shall divide into three groups- no point leaving anybody too vulnerable when we don't know what happened here- and see what we can find. Chesteron, you and Susan will assist Ms Cooper in her search, I shall take Miss Grant and Mr Williams with me, and Miss Wright will accompany you, old fellow."

"An effective plan, certainly," the other Doctor said, smiling briefly at Barbara before he indicated a corner of the building. "We'll check things out over there, shall we?"

"I'll take this end," Gwen added, indicating another corner of the building before she drew her gun and hurried off in that direction, leaving Ian and Susan to hurry after her while the Doctor left to investigate another part of the building with the remaining two.

As they entered the building, Ian tried not to shudder at the sight of the piles of rubble around him; seeing the devastation on Skaro and Sarath had been bad, but seeing something like this in a building on Earth, that may have been occupied by people that the Doctor knew- and therefore people that Ian might be able to relate to- when the explosion took place...

He hated to sound self-centred, but as much as he'd sympathised with the Thals and the Arkhaven citizens- he might not have liked what Draad had done, but he could appreciate how everyone had been finding it difficult to cope with the knowledge that their planet faced certain death-, it just seemed more _real _when this kind of thing happened on his own planet, particularly when it was only within a few decades of his own time; assuming he took care of himself, he could actually still be alive out there if the Doctor had managed to get him and Barbara back to 1963...

"Oh no..." Ian whispered as he turned around a corner and his eyes took in the sight in front of him; a man about his age, possibly a few years older, dressed in a thick grey coat and blue shirt, lying underneath a pile of rubble near a pillar. A young woman a few years younger than him, dressed in a dark shirt and jacket similar to Gwen's attire with long brown hair and a distinctive cut on her forehead, was trying to haul some of the rubble piled on top of him out of the way, but Ian had seen enough death since he started travelling with the Doctor to know that the man in front of him was dead.

"_Leela_!" Gwen said, smiling in relief as she hurried over to the woman, Susan and Ian hurrying after her.

"Gwen?" the brown-haired woman said, turning to look at Gwen with a slightly uncertain smile. "You... you came..."

Her eyes widened as she took in the other two. "Who...?"

"Ian Chesterton and Susan Foreman; they travelled with the Doctor," Gwen replied with a shrug. "Still unclear on the 'how', but apparently something's up with the Rift and it drew a couple of versions of the Doctor's TARDIS- past, apparently; neither of them know you or me- to Cardiff; they were looking for the Rift Manipulator to try and find out what had happened, but-"

"You know the Doctor?" Leela said, looking in surprise at the other two.

"Yes, we do," Susan replied, nodding in confirmation at Leela.

"Then it is good to meet you both," Leela said, smiling gratefully at the younger girl before she turned her attention back to the man in front of her. "We can talk later; for now, if you could help me free Captain Harkness?"

"Uh... sure," Ian said, looking awkwardly down at the body of the man before them; he didn't entirely see the point of digging up someone who was clearly already dead, but given that they needed these people if they were going to figure out what was keeping the TARDIS grounded, he didn't really have any reason to object to spending time on something that wouldn't take that long...

"So, what happened here, anyway?" Gwen asked, as the four of them resumed Leela's work in removing some of the rubble from around Captain Harkness's body.

"We were tracking alien life-forms that Toshiko had detected in this area, but when we found them, the source of the signals were merely explosive devices," Leela explained, her expression grim as she continued to work at releasing her friend. "Once we discovered the source, I was able to dive out of a nearby window before the bombs exploded, but the force of the blast..."

She paused and raised her fingers to rub at the dried cut on her forehead, only for any further explanation on her part to be cut off when Captain Harkness let out a sudden gasp and opened his eyes, screaming as he grabbed at Gwen and Ian's hands as they stood on either side of him.

"What the-?" Ian said, staring incredulously at the now-moving body before them even as Gwen leaned over to whisper reassuringly at him. "He was- I thought-!"

"All right!" Gwen said, looking pointed at Liam before she looked back at the captain. "Jack, just stay calm; we'll get you out of this-"

"Who are _they_?" Jack yelled, indicating Ian and Susan in near-hostile confusion.

"Susan Foreman and Ian Chesterton; they travel with the Doctor," Gwen explained.

"The... the Doctor?" Jack said, a slight smile on his face as he looked at Ian and Susan with new appreciation. "He's here?"

"Two of him, actually," Gwen replied with a slight smile.

"_Two_?" Leela and Jack said, looking sharply at Gwen with this new information.

"Yes, Susan and I- and Barbara; she travels with us- arrived here with... well, I suppose you can call him 'our' Doctor... and we ran into another one while we were looking around," Ian explained, looking awkwardly at the captain for a moment before he finally came to a decision. "I'm sorry if this is rude, but... you _were _dead, weren't you?"

"For a bit," Captain Harkness replied, wince as he reached down to help Leela move some of the rocks still covering his legs. "As for how I came back... long story short; I can't die."

Ian could only blink in surprise at the simple manner in which Captain Harkness had delivered that statement- how long had this man been alive that he could reveal the fact that he was immortal so casually?-, but Susan responded to the statement before Ian could say anything himself.

"Something... _happened _to you, didn't it?" the young girl said, wincing slightly as she looked at the captain before she stepped back, shaking her head as she placed a palm against her forehead. "You're... you're _wrong_, somehow... time's moving _around _you..."

"Hold on; you can _see _that?" Captain Harkness said, looking at Susan with a sudden intense interest that Ian wasn't sure how to react to; if Susan had been a conventional pupil, he would have made some kind of objection, but given that their relationship had moved beyond that point- coupled with the fact that he was never sure how old Susan _really _was if she was one of the Doctor's race; a couple of comments his friend had made suggested that he was far older than the human age he appeared to be, which made it likely that Susan was the same-, did he really have the right to say anything?

"Of course," Susan said, looking uncertainly at the older man. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Uh... nothing, no reason," Captain Harkness said- Ian thought he saw the man exchange a brief glance with Leela, but it was over before he could be sure of anything-, followed by him turning back to look at Susan with a slight smile. "So, Miss Foreman, what's it like-?"

"Susan?" a voice said from further down the ruined corridor that led to the building's entrance.

"Grandfather?" Susan said, turning to look in the direction of the voice just as Barbara and the other Doctor came through the door, now accompanied by a man about Ian's age with a rounder face dressed in a leather jacket and a blue shirt, one hand pressed against his left side and his left leg slightly stiff compared to the other.

"Owen!" Gwen said, looking at the new arrival with a broad smile. "They found you, then?"

"Just in time, too; nasty bit of broken glass was about to slice my neck before they showed up and dragged me out..." Owen- the team doctor, Ian thought he recalled somebody mentioning once- said, before looking over in confusion at the velvet-clad Doctor. "By the way, how the _Hell _is this guy the Doctor; I thought-?"

"Hold on; you're the _Doctor_?" Captain Harkness said, looking with suddenly panicked eyes at the other man. "As in, the _Doctor _Doctor?"

"Who else would I be, young... man?" the other Doctor said, hesitating slightly as he looked at the captain curiously. "Is there something I should-?"

"If you're talking about what I am, it happens in your future and this is _really _not the time to be talking about that... and you're the _Doctor_?" Captain Harkness said, his tone somehow going from calm to panicked while maintaining a rapid pace at the same time. "But... but she called you _Grandfather_-?"

"Because he is," Susan said, looking at Captain Harkness with slight confusion. "I'm his granddaughter; what else would I call him?"

"_Granddau_-?" Captain Harkness began, only to stop himself as his expression suddenly shifted from surprise to panic as he looked urgently at the other Doctor. "_Nothing happened_!"

"Pardon-?" the other Doctor began.

"Never mind, that's not important right now; you'll... you'll get that later," Captain Harkness said, as he hurriedly reached down to shove the last few rocks away from his legs- which seemed to be relatively undamaged, although Ian was guessing that his... condition... was probably involved in that- before he scrambled to his feet, his gaze constantly anxiously flicking towards the other Doctor as though he was worried that the other man was going to try and attack him for some reason. "Look, right now we need to get the rest of my team out; Tosh is down that way, and you should be able to get her out, but I need to figure out where Ianto is..."

Ian wasn't sure how the teams were divided in that manner, but he soon found himself hurrying through the building's shattered corridors with Gwen, Susan, and the other Doctor while Captain Harkness took Owen and Leela with him, trying not to think about what could be so different about Captain Harkness that it gave the Doctor and Susan headaches, he barely registered the calls for 'Toshiko' or 'Tosh' coming from his new friends; his ears were focused on trying to hear a response, and he soon heard just what he was looking for in the form of a scream from a short distance away.

As he and his group ran towards the sound, Ian couldn't help but shudder at the sight before him when they found the room where the yells had come from. While Captain Harkness had just been buried under a small pile of rocks, the dark-haired Japanese woman that Ian assumed was Toshiko Sato was not only buried underneath obviously larger bricks than those that had trapped Captain Harkness, but she herself was trapped under a long, thick structure, about the width of her own body, that Ian guessed had been a support pillar for the roof before the explosion knocked it over, cables hanging from the roof and dust falling around her as she lay underneath the pillar, trapped and screaming.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Gwen yelled urgently, crouching down beside her friend to take her hand as Ian and the other Doctor took hold of the rock and tried to lift it. "Tosh, it's me; I've got help, you just need to _hold on_..."

"I think I've broken my arm..." Toshiko said, her voice sounding like she was struggling not to cry from panic. "My chest... oh God... _help me_..."

"Not to worry, Miss Sato; we'll have you out soon," the other Doctor said, looking over at Ian and Gwen as he spoke. "Ms Williams, Ian, when I give the word, we will all three lift up this rock; Susan, you have to try and pull Miss Sato out before we lose our grip. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Grandfather," Susan replied, smiling briefly back at him.

"Good," the other Doctor said, smiling briefly at Susan before he, Ian and Gwen took up position along the pillar as Susan crouched down beside Toshiko's head. "On three; one... two... _three_!"

With that, the three adults strained with all their strength against the stone block lying over the young Japanese woman, the block shifting a few crucial inches upwards after what felt like a far longer time than it probably was. As soon as the block had been raised off Toshiko's back, Susan had grabbed her free arm and was helping her crawl out from under the block, her clothing slightly torn and her breathing slightly choked even as she moved the last few inches out of danger.

"Thank... thank you..." the Japanese woman said, looking curiously at the group around her as Susan helped her get back to her feet. "Who... who are you?"

"Ian Chesterton," Ian said, nodding briefly at Toshiko by way of introduction; given her evidently injured arm, offering a handshake right now seemed impractical. "That's Susan Foreman, and this is... well, he's the Doctor."

"The Doctor-?" Toshiko began, looking at the other Doctor in surprise before she nodded slightly in understanding. "Of course... you're the one who first worked with UNIT, aren't you?"

"Indeed I was," the other Doctor replied, looking at Toshiko with slight curiosity. "How did you know that?"

"I... worked at UNIT a few years ago," Toshiko replied, looking awkwardly at the Doctor. "It... didn't go too well... but I did have access to their files on you."

"Ah," the other Doctor said, nodding slightly awkwardly at the woman before them; something in their respective manners made it clear to Ian that he shouldn't ask for more information about what they were talking about at this time.

"Look, we can talk about this later; right now, we need to get _out _of here!" Gwen said, walking over to allow Toshiko to wrap her uninjured arm around her shoulders so that she could help support the other woman. "Jack and the others should have found Ianto by now; we can talk about this back at the Hub."

Nodding in agreement, Toshiko began to hurry towards the exit, supported by Gwen as the other three followed on after her. In a few moments, they were out in the sunlight once again, Captain Harkness, Leela, and Owen having already been joined by Rhys, Jo and the Doctor, along with a man in a suit who Ian guessed was the 'Ianto Jones' he'd heard people talking about earlier.

"You OK, Tosh?" Captain Harkness asked, looking the injured woman over urgently.

"Broken arm, bruised ribs, about an inch away from being crushed by a girder," Toshiko replied with a brisk manner that Ian wasn't sure how to interpret; either she was just used to being injured, or she was trying to distract herself from her injuries by thinking of them like they had happened to someone else.

"Considering the damage that we could have sustained in this explosion, we were all very fortunate," Leela noted, looking at the buildings around them contemplatively.

"Quite, my dear," the Doctor noted, looking over at the woman with an approving nod before he turned to face Captain Harkness. "On that topic, my good fellow, do you have any ideas who would go to such lengths to attempt to blow you up in such a haphazard manner?"

"And where's the SUV?" Ianto asked.

Before Captain Harkness could respond, a device on his wrist suddenly beeped, prompting him to push back his sleeve and press a button on it. Instantly, a beam of blue light came from the device to project a full-sized image- Ian thought that the term Susan had used to describe something like this once was a 'hologram'- of a dark-haired man dressed in what looked like an old-fashioned military uniform, his hands on his hips as he looked at them.

"Oh no..." Ianto muttered.

"Jack, what does he want?" Gwen asked.

"_Oh, deja vu_!" the man in the projection said, his voice briefly enthusiastic before it took on a more contemplative tone. "_Or did I say that already_?"

Ian tried to open his mouth to ask who this man was, but then the hologram continued talking, his tone almost disturbingly nonchalant for what he had to say to them. "_Hey, team. Course, there might be a few less of you by now. Don't know if you liked my little gift_."

A quick glance at the Torchwood team was all that Ian needed to confirm that, whoever this man was, they already knew him and didn't like him (Leela and Rhys seemed to be as confused as Ian and his fellow travellers, but he could ask for the reasons behind that later).

"_Course, you can't die_," the hologram said nonchalantly."_And with all that life, all that time, you can't spare any for me. Oh! Say hi to the family_."

With that unusual statement, the hologram activated a device on his wrist that seemed to be similar to the one Jack was wearing, creating a second projection of a man dressed in some kind of featureless overalls.

"No..." Captain Harkness said, his head shaking in denial. "It can't be."

"_Been a while since you've seen your brother, eh, Jack_?" the first hologram said, prompting Ian to pay closer attention to the other hologram; now that he looked, there _was _a slight facial resemblance between the two men...

"Gray?" Captain Harkness practically yelled, his body shaking as though he was trying to stop himself from collapsing in shock.

"_OK, here's what's going to happen_," the hologram said in a resolute voice, his lack of reaction to Jack's question at least confirming for Ian that they were probably dealing with a pre-recorded message rather than an interactive one; whatever else was going on here, at least the presence of the TARDIS crew was something that this man didn't seem to be aware of. "_Everything you love, everything you treasure, will die. I'm going to tear your world apart, Captain Jack Harkness, piece by piece. Starting now. Maybe now you'll wanna spend some time with me_."

With that, the two holograms shut down, leaving Ian and his friends to look apprehensively over at the Torchwood team as they stood around their leader.

Whatever was happening here was definitely not going to be easily dealt with; somehow, Ian had a feeling that anything intended to destroy what a man who couldn't die cared for would operate on a _very _large scale...

* * *

AN 3: Well, that's "Fragments" dealt with; when we get back to Cardiff, it's the Doctors and Jack VS John Hart and Gray, but next chapter we're returning to the Planet of Evil, as Donna must work with the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Doctors against a demented alliance after an unspeakable goal...


	23. The History of Evil

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Once again, we're back on the Planet of Evil, as Donna and her new friends learn about the Doctor's connection to this world and its 'new' occupants...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As Donna stared at the small facility in front of her, she wondered what should scare her more; that she was stuck in her best friend's past facing an army of the creatures that had destroyed his homeworld and a couple of people bad enough to make _three _Doctors worried, or just that she was stuck dealing with three different Doctors at once?

Actually, she should probably worry more about the second one; with at least three enemies there- she could probably count the Daleks as a single enemy after everything she'd heard about them-, that pretty much amounted to one enemy for each Doctor to deal with, which was definitely nothing they hadn't faced before, but the idea of three people as stubborn as the Doctor trying to get along would probably make things a _bit _complicated...

"So," Claire asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the small group as they processed what the Doctors had just told them, looking pointedly at the Doctor she'd arrived here with, "for those of us who have _no _idea what's going on here, care to give us the cast list for who we're dealing with?"

"Mavic Chen was the 'Guardian of the Solar System'- essentially he was in charge of the Earth's empire- around the year 4000, but he betrayed his duty and allied with the Daleks- an alien that have long been our oldest and most terrible enemies; I'll fill you in on our history with them later- in an attempt to acquire even greater power, working with the Daleks to create the Time Destructor, a weapon that could age everyone around it to death in seconds," the Doctor in the bad coat explained, looking at Claire even as his gaze flicked over to Amy, Donna and the Brigadier as well, clearly recognising that they would need to hear this as well (Why Romana was exempt Donna didn't know; she'd have to ask later). "It took his forces fifty years to mine enough of a rare mineral called Taranium to serve as the weapon's power source, and then he was never able to activate the weapon because I stole the Taranium core and managed to stay on the run from the Daleks long enough for Chen to outlive his usefulness to them; his arrogance reached a point where they killed him rather than listen to him rant any more."

"Admittedly, we didn't _see _him die, but if he didn't die when he was shot by the Daleks he would definitely have been killed when we activated the weapon ahead of schedule," the Doctor in the cricket jumper added, looking grimly over at hi other two selves. "The entire planet aged to death in a matter of minutes; I only managed to survive because Steven- one of our current companions- managed to set the device into reverse before I could age to death..."

"Ah," the Brigadier said, nodding briefly at the younger-looking Doctor in understanding.

"And... that Magnus guy?" Claire asked. "What did he do?"

"He was the Minister of Justice for the Supreme Alliance on Earth in the year 5000, regarding himself as a scientific pioneer for his time and a major driving force in a project to develop what he thought was a time machine," the Doctor in the scarf explained.

"What he _thought _was a time machine?" Donna repeated, looking at the Doctor who'd just spoken with a quizzical stare. "How's that work; you've either got a time machine or you don't, right?"

"Can you really call it a time machine when the power source required to make it work causes a catastrophic biological disruption that culminates in your body suffering from complete cellular collapse?" Romana asked, looking pointedly over at the Chiswick temp.

"Uh... point," Donna admitted, nodding awkwardly at the other woman; she'd only understood the general gist of what Romana had just told her, but she recognised enough terms to be sure that what she was describing would have been a very bad thing to happen to someone.

"That... doesn't sound very nice," Amy admitted, slightly shuddering as she processed what Romana had just told them, voicing Donna's own thoughts.

"It wasn't," the Doctor in the scarf said, his tone grim as he looked over at his future companion. "When Leela and I encountered him in 1889- he had to escape using his prototype machine after he nearly triggered World War Six, and he spent several years looking for his Time Cabinet after he landed in China in 1872 and was separated from it-, Greel was trying to sustain himself by using a catalytic extraction chamber to extract the proteins and energy from others so that he could supplant his body's current inability to produce them itself, but the whole process was fundamentally flawed; all he was doing was accelerating the damage."

"And... what killed _him _in the end?" the Brigadier asked, although something in his stance suggested that he'd already guessed at the answer.

"I threw him into his own catalytic extraction chamber and his entire cellular structure fell apart as he lost everything he needed to keep himself alive," the Doctor replied grimly. "I'm not proud of it, but it was the only way to stop him; if Greel had reactivated his time cabinet, the resulting implosion of zygma energy could have destroyed all of London, and he was never going to listen to any attempt I might have made to reason with him."

"And before anyone asks," the Doctor in the bad coat added, looking pointedly over at Claire, "I _saw _him collapse into dust after he fell into the chamber, and checked the dust to confirm its origins myself; it was definitely Greel's remains."

"Actually, I wasn't going to say anything about doubting you... or him... or whatever I should think of him as; I was _going _to ask if there's any possibility that we could... just leave everything here and go?" Claire asked, looking over at her Doctor, even if her initially blunt manner faltered slightly as the Time Lord glared at her. "I mean... OK, these guys aren't exactly pleasant, I'm getting that, but they're on a planet on the edge of the universe over thirty thousand years in the future-"

"Considering what happened the last times I visited here when someone was trying to harness the power available from Zeta Minor, we _definitely _have to take action," the Doctor in cricket gear said resolutely.

"Why?" Amy asked, looking curiously over at her friend. "What happened when you were last here?"

"Well, when I visited Zeta Minor, Professor Sorenson- a scientist who'd been part of an expedition to study the planet- had been carrying out research on the possibilities of anti-matter as a power source," the Doctor in the scarf explained. "His research did allow him to harness some samples of anti-matter, but the instability of anti-matter also caused a mutative effect in his own system that turned him into a partly anti-matter entity himself, as well as releasing a creature from the anti-matter realm to hunt down the 'invaders' before I was able to restore the stolen anti-matter to their universe."

"We were able to arrange for the anti-matter to be returned in time, but as I learned during a return visit two thousand years later, the experiments weren't abandoned," the celery-wearing Doctor said, taking up the story from his other self even as he looked awkwardly at his past self, clearly recognising that this was going to be difficult for him to hear. "The Morestrans- the group responsible for the original surveys- had originally tried to develop a new power source based on a suggestion we made about harnessing power from the kinetic forces generated by planetary movement, but when that didn't work, they converted the Energy Tower they'd created for that purpose to function by using anti-matter. They were able to escape being attacked by the anti-matter creatures that had attacked Sorenson by having prisoners sent to Zeta Minor and exposed to anti-matter; once they had mutated into anti-men and begun producing anti-matter in their own bodies, they were left on Zeta Minor to maintain the balance while the original anti-matter, being essentially regarded as the 'surplus', was removed from the planet."

"Intelligent," Romana said, nodding reflectively at the future Doctor. "It wouldn't work, of course- anti-matter is too unstable for them to be able to harness it even if they can devise a safe way of extracting it without disrupting the physical laws of the universe-, but the essential idea is sound."

"My thoughts exactly," the celery-wearing Doctor nodded. "I was able to stop the 'Zeta Project'- the name they gave to the whole attempt, obviously- and save my companion from infection by making contact with the anti-matter intelligence on the other side of the portal, but it still resulted in several people dying when the anti-men went out of control before I managed to activate the Tower and allow the forces from the other universe to draw the anti-matter back to themselves."

"So... you believe that the Daleks would be attempting to harness the power of the anti-matter for themselves?" the Brigadier asked, looking uncertainly between the two Doctors.

"It's certainly possible," the Doctor in the bad coat confirmed. "They're definitely arrogant enough to believe that they can harness its power, and the scenario that we encountered last time we were here could be used by the Daleks; they would definitely be willing to mutate some of their own to gain access to something as valuable as anti-matter..."

"But that _doesn't_ explain why Chen and Greel are here," the Doctor with the celery stick added, looking grimly over at his other two selves. "Putting aside the temporal implications of them still being alive, the Daleks already killed Chen once when he proved to be too difficult for them to work with; there's no reason for them to want him and Greel here..."

"Actually, there is," Romana said, a tone of horrified awe in her voice as she snapped her fingers in inspiration. "They're here to be _you_..."

"_What_?" the three Doctors said, looking incredulously at Romana.

"It's the same reason that the Daleks and the Movellans were both interested in acquiring Davros," Romana explained, looking between her companion's three selves. "The Daleks can mine the anti-matter efficiently enough, but they can't think of a way to use it that might stabilise it; Greel might be a scientific idiot, but he is still highly intelligent in his way, and Chen didn't get to where he was by being tactically stupid either."

"Yeah, you mentioned- well, you _will _mention to me, anyway- that the Daleks' main issue was a lack of imagination..." Donna muttered, nodding reflectively as she looked between the Doctors. "That actually sounds rather likely, really; they need out-of-the-box thinkers, so they bring in a couple of highly skilled loonies."

She allowed herself a slight smile as she looked between the Doctors. "After all, it probably comes to the same thing as having you around."

"Excuse me?" the Doctor in the bad coat said, looking indignantly at Donna. "Miss Noble, I resent-"

"Oh, calm down, Doctor; she does have a point, after all," the Doctor in the scarf said with a slight smile, shrugging dismissively at his future self before he assumed a more serious expression. "Right now, whatever else happens, here, our first priority should be to get down there and figure out how much anti-matter they've collected so far and where it's being stored; there's no point shutting them down here if they've got their supplies stored on an asteroid somewhere."

"Hold on; you want to sneak _into _an alien base controlled by a couple of total psychopaths and a race of genocidal maniacs, _all _of whom have a grudge against you?" Claire asked, waving her hands as she looked urgently between the group around her. "Am I the _only _one with a problem with this?"

"Look, Mavic Chen and Magnus Greel are off at the edge right now, but those buildings in the middle look like they're the most secure; if there's anything worthwhile in that camp, they'll probably be there," the Doctor in the cricket jumper said, staring grimily at the red-haired woman before he turned to look at the others. "It might be risky, but I'm right; if the Daleks, Chen and Greel are here attempting to harvest anti-matter, we _have _to stop them before they get a clearer idea what to do with the supplies here."

"Good call," Donna said, smiling brief at the Doctor as she stood up and clapped her hands together. "What's our next move?"

"You're staying here-" the Doctor in the bad coat began.

"_What_?" Donna countered, glaring back at the Doctor who'd just spoken. "Hold on, you can't-!"

"You're not from this time and you're dealing with a situation in the past of the Doctor who sent you here; you _cannot_-!" the Doctor began.

"Hoi!" Donna said, walking over to poke the Doctor in question in the chest. "I'm not _weak_, OK? I was nearly killed by the last of the sodding Racnoss when I met my Doctor, got stuck in a Sontaran ship when they tried to steal the bloody TARDIS, _and_ had to save Mahatma Ghandi from a bunch of aliens! I may not have any degrees in temporal mechanics, but you're looking at the best goddamn temp in Chiswick; I know how to search filing systems like _nobody's _business, and I've only gotten better at it since I started travelling with you! If you're looking for anything in files down there, I'm probably your best bet-!"

"Actually, I could do that too," Claire suddenly put in, looking pointedly over at the Doctor she'd arrived with. "As he'll tell you, I'm a journalist- just working for the Conspiracy Channel at the moment, I admit, but I'm in the game nevertheless-; might not have the range of experiences that Donna here's picked up, but I'm no slouch when it comes to tracking leads."

"What happened to your original objections to attempting an infiltration mission, Miss Aldwych?" the Brigadier asked, looking over at Claire with a slight smile.

"Hey, I was going to follow you guys into a Nazi base in Antarctica; at least here I'd know we have back-up if we need it," Claire replied, smiling briefly back at him before her expression became more resolute. "Besides... if things here are _half _as potentially bad as you think they're going to be, we should probably deal with this sooner rather than later."

"Quite," the Doctor with the celery said, nodding resolutely as he glanced over at the scarf-wearing version of himself. "In that case, the survey team will be the two of us, Miss Aldwych, Miss Noble, and K9; K9's our best weapon if we need to defend ourselves, and their data research skills might be useful to us."

"Excuse me, what about-?" Romana began.

"I'm not going to put all _four _of us at risk, Romana; he's not exactly built for stealth operations, and... well, in all fairness, we can think on our feet a bit faster than you and the Brigadier's past his prime," the Doctor in the cricket outfit said, shrugging slightly apologetically as he looked at the other woman while indicating his future self. For a moment, Romana simply glared back at him, but then the glare faded to reveal a more contemplative expression before she signed and nodded in resignation.

"Fine," she said, nodding in slightly frustrated acceptance at the Doctor. "Just... be careful, please?"

"Of course," the Doctor in the scarf said, smiling reassuringly at her. "We're always careful."

Even as Donna knew that such a statement made about the Doctor would almost certainly be an exaggeration, she couldn't help but feel a little better at the knowledge that she wasn't going into a situation like this on her own.

It wasn't going to be easy, but if she and her new/old friends (She might have known the Doctor for months, but she didn't know _these _Doctors, and she hadn't technically met the Brigadier yet from his perspective) could come together as a group, these guys wouldn't have a _prayer_...

* * *

AN 2: Not the most dramatic chapter, I know- although I hope it cleared up some questions about what the Daleks, Greel and Chen are doing here, even if the _how _they're here is still to be answered-, but the next one should make up for it; we're going back to the Second, Seventh and Ninth Doctors, as they have to tackle the "Father's Day" crisis with the addition of the Players and the Selachians (To say nothing of a potentially troublesome companion in the form of Klein)...


	24. On Time, Doctors, and Reapers

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A return to Earth, as Martha meets the woman she's only met as a raving psychopath in the middle of a potential temporal crisis

AN 2: Since this chapter's going to be mainly told in Martha's POV, she'll mentally refer to the three Doctors present by their number as a means of keeping track of them, since the Tenth's already told her which Doctor was which (Unlike Donna and the Torchwood team, who only know each Doctor by their different appearances)

AN 3: A brief reference to my story "Filling in the Blanks", but all you need to know is that, in my version of events, the Eighth Doctor regenerated into the Ninth after a damaged TARDIS console exploded in his face shortly after regaining his memories of his role in Gallifrey's destruction

AN 4: Timing-wise for "Father's Day", this takes place after Pete's learned who Rose is but before the Doctor tried to use the TARDIS key to recharge the ship; it was important that Pete know that the Doctor and Rose are time travellers, but I didn't want the Ninth Doctor to have reached the point where he has any real ideas about how he might be able to solve the problem on his own (Aside from the obvious 'solution' of letting Pete die)

AN 5: Hope everyone likes the debate with Klein I included here; it gets a bit repetitive, but given that Klein's up against _three _Doctors in the middle of a crisis I figured that she'd find it a lot harder to get a word in edgeways

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Look, we can worry about who's here when they shouldn't be later; right now we _need _to get out of here before the Reapers get here!" Martha yelled, looking in frustration at the Ninth Doctor; she understood that he had personal issues in this incarnation- coping with the knowledge that he'd destroyed his own people in the midst of a rather difficult regeneration hadn't done him any favours-, but when his past was in danger this wasn't the time to try and pander to them. "Are you going to let us in, or not?"

"_Fine_..." the Ninth Doctor muttered, stepping aside to let his two past selves and the three women with them into the church. "Just try and focus on the problem at hand; if you're going to make this whole thing worse, you might as well be helping me work out the solution..."

Martha briefly noted the other two Doctors exchanging uncertain glances with each other as they walked into the church, but didn't let herself worry about that; they were bound to be concerned about what could have happened here to make their future self this worried...

Then her eyes fell on the blonde woman sitting in a nearby pew, dressed in a casual zip-up hoodie and jeans with her hair tied back, looking between the three Doctors and their companions in obvious confusion, and Martha's blood almost ran cold.

_Rose_...

She knew that it wasn't fair to judge the woman in front of her because of something that she hadn't even done yet- and wouldn't have done on her own anyway; from the stories that the Doctor had told her about his old travels with Rose, the Master had twisted her to an almost unbelievable degree to get her to the point where she'd done the things that she'd taken part in during the Master's rule of Earth-, but that didn't mean she wasn't allowed to feel slightly uncomfortable at the thought of facing Rose Tyler all over again.

"Hi," she said, trying to sound less uncomfortable than she felt as she offered her hand to the woman before her. "Doctor Martha Jones; you're... Rose, right?"

"Yeah..." Rose said, nodding slightly awkwardly at Martha as she shook her hand (Not that Martha could blame her; from what she recalled about what the Doctor had told her about this particular experience, Rose was having a _very _difficult time right now, what with her father having failed to turn out to be the kind of man she was expecting to encounter even before the Reapers were added to the equation). "Who're... what's...?"

"Oh, so sorry; I was so caught up in recent events I almost forgot to introduce myself," the Second Doctor said, shaking Rose's hand with a warm smile. "I'm the Doctor, and so is he; I take it that you travel with the me who was here already?"

"Uh... what?" Rose asked, even as Martha inwardly cursed the Second Doctor's forward manner; it might get the questions out of the way, but that wouldn't make it any easier for Rose to process this new information (To say nothing of making it an obvious necessity for her to see about getting in touch with Jack once this was over; according to the Doctor's stories of past multi-incarnation encounters, the TARDIS generally put a 'time-lock' on the memories of the Doctor's past selves whenever they met the 'present' version of him so that he'd remember the experience from their perspectives after he had the encounter from the perspective of the latest version of himself, but that didn't mean that _Rose _wouldn't remember this)...

"You mean I didn't tell you?" the Second Doctor said, looking over at the Ninth Doctor in surprise. "After all the trouble I had confirming my identity with Ben and Polly after the first time, I would have thought that I-"

"Stuff kept coming up; never seemed like an issue 'till now," the Ninth Doctor said, shrugging dismissively at his past self.

"_What _never seemed like an issue?" Rose asked, looking in frustration at the Ninth Doctor as she waved a hand at the Second. "Why did he say he's the Doctor? _You're _the Doctor-!"

"And he _was _the Doctor... or I _will be _the Doctor; it depends on who you came here with, really," the Ninth Doctor interjected.

"Huh?" Rose said.

"It's quite simple, Miss Tyler," the Seventh Doctor said, stepping forward slightly to address her. "Time Lords, such as myself, have the ability to regenerate when we sustain fatal injuries of some sort; as a result, the Doctor you just met is our second incarnation, I am presently in my seventh body, and you have apparently come here with our..."

"Ninth self," the Ninth Doctor finished, staring intently at his past self for a moment before his gaze shifted back to Martha. "I know who Serena and Klein are, but I don't recognise _you_."

"Well, you wouldn't; I'm from your future," Martha replied, deciding not to be hurt by his lack of recognition; the Seventh Doctor recognising her had been a bit of a stretch at best, and from what the Doctor had told Martha about his past his eighth self had experienced so many incidences involving memory loss that he was amazed he'd come through that incarnation reasonably mentally intact. "I travel with... well, with the next you."

"Oh," the Ninth Doctor said, his face briefly becoming slightly sad at this news- not that Martha could blame him; even if you'd actually 'died' already, nobody liked to be reminded of their mortality- before he looked more seriously at his past two selves. "So, what're you all doing here now?"

"We were attacked in the vortex and forced to make an emergency landing in this area, and the same thing apparently happened to me over there," the Seventh Doctor explained, briefly indicating his second self as he spoke even if he was clearly aware of the attention that his future self was paying to Klein's presence. "As you can imagine, I was hoping to... finish what I had to do... but then Doctor Jones showed up and more immediate matters had to take priority-"

"Yeah, _immediate _was the word when I was you, wasn't it?" the Ninth Doctor said, looking pointedly at his past self.

"Pardon?" the Seventh replied.

"Always reacting to the current mess and setting up plans to help yourself out in the aftermath, but never really doing anything about the _long-term _problems," the Ninth elaborated. "If you'd just thought ahead a bit-"

"I did what seemed right at the time, just as we all do; if something I didn't do has caused problems for you now, then I'm sorry-" the Seventh began.

"Like that makes up that; what Klein did because you couldn't be bothered looking for her earlier's just the _start_-" the Ninth interrupted.

"Now now now, there's no need to argue; we're all the same man here-" the Second said, stepping forward to stand between his other two selves.

"Oh, we're _not _the same; what I've done since I was _either _of you-" the Ninth Doctor began, anger obvious in his voice.

"_Enough_!" Martha said, surprised to note that Serena had said the same thing at the same time; she was surprised at the other woman's insistence, but given that Serena was another Time Lord she supposed that strength of will would be pretty much a requirement for one of the Doctor's race.

"Look," Martha said, shaking her head in frustration as she looked between the three Doctors, "we've got enough problems right now; we've got Reapers out there, you mentioned something about the Countess's forces appearing in this time, and we've also got those dark matter bombs you mentioned-"

"_Dark matter bombs_?" the Ninth Doctor repeated, practically spinning around to glare at Martha at her last comment.

"You know something about them?" the Second Doctor asked.

"I knew someone who used them," the Ninth Doctor said, shaking his head slightly as he looked out of the nearby window, Martha briefly glimpsing the dragon-like form of a Reaper as she followed his gaze. "That's not important now; once we figure out some way to get those Reapers off our backs, _then _we can worry about the bombs."

"What are those 'Reaper' things anyway?" Klein asked, looking at the Ninth Doctor. "From what I've seen, I doubt that they are a fully intelligent species-"

"They're not," the Ninth Doctor said, glaring over at her. "They're the universe's response to people changing history."

For a moment, Klein could only stare at the man in the leather jacket standing before her for a few moments, until she shook her head while smiling over at the Seventh.

"Well, it would appear that you were wrong about my role in history, Doctor," she said, smirking at him. "I have little doubt that _you_ would be capable of devising _some _way of blocking these things if history didn't play out the way you wanted it to, but they never showed up when _I _did anything-"

"They're responding to a tear in time, Klein; they're trying to eliminate the damage by removing the 'scar tissue' around the original change until the wound's repaired," the Ninth Doctor interjected, glaring pointedly at the former Nazi scientist. "If time was a human body, the Reapers are surgeons stitching up a bad cut Rose made, but what _you _did to time is the equivalent of hacking off a limb; the Reapers_ wouldn't _have been drawn to your changes because you were doing too much damage for their presence to make any real difference."

"If I understand the implications of my analogy correctly, it would be like calling a doctor because you'd been decapitated; your actions did- or will, from my perspective- cause so much damage that there would be nothing anybody could do, so what would be the point in anyone showing up to do anything?" the Second Doctor put in, his gaze narrowing as he looked over at Klein. "And I must say, for you to change history-"

"You had already changed it; I simply sought to restore my world-!" Klein began.

"_No_," Martha said, glaring at the other woman.

"What?" Klein asked, looking over at her incredulously (Martha tried to suppress the part of her mind that suspected that the incredulity came from the fact that someone of her skin colour was addressing Klein like that; what she'd seen of the woman so far hadn't created an encouraging impression of her, but they had to work together right now if they were going to work out what was going on).

"The Doctor _doesn't _change history," Martha said, walking forward to stand in front of Klein as she stared at the other woman, hoping that the intensity of her manner would at least make some kind of impression on her where time with the Doctor had apparently failed to do so. "He told me- the version of him I travel with- that the second you change history on that scale once, he worries that he'd become tempted to change it every time things didn't work out the way he wanted them to. What would he do then; go everywhere in time where things didn't turn out the way he'd like them to and keep on rewriting it until it's 'right'?"

"He has the power-!" Klein began.

"And look where it got you when you tried to _use _that power you believe I possess, Klein," the Seventh Doctor said grimly, leaning on his umbrella as it was positioned in front of him while he stared at her in contemplation. "When I travelled with you, I went wherever I pleased to see and do whatever I wanted, but when you possessed my ship, you were doing nothing but constantly retracing your steps to keep the Reich intact, going back and forth around one part of the universe to preserve what you had created, distrusted by the people you perceived yourself as serving, giving 'your' government additional information to the point where they could never learn or develop on their own because they were so used to you dropping in to save them-"

"I had a _duty _to the Reich-!" Klein spat, even if her clearly flustered expression made it clear that she was starting to recognise that she had dug a hole for herself.

"Time is _not _meant to be manipulated like that, Doctor Klein!" Serena said, walking over to glare at the other woman. "The Doctor and I were trying to stop a woman who rewrote history to amuse herself, and she existed partly outside history anyway; changing a timeline that you yourself should be part of is so dangerous it's a miracle you didn't paradox yourself out of existence!"

"He _used _me to erase my own world-!" Klein tried to argue back.

"If I could have done it myself, Klein, I would; hasn't your own experience in the TARDIS taught you that you can't rewrite events that you witnessed yourself?" the Seventh Doctor asked grimly. "I did what I thought I had to do, but that was it; I restored history, but I did not change it. If I was as determined to reset the timeline to my perspective as you think I am, why would I not have just gone back and stopped the war in the first place?"

"Because you wanted Germany to _know _it had failed-!" Klein tried to say.

"Because, despite what you would like to think of me, I am _not _that person," the Seventh Doctor said, glaring resolutely back at her. "I do _not _rewrite history to fit what I want to happen; I allow what must happen to take place and improve where I can."

"And I am expected to _believe _you?" Klein asked, rolling her eyes slightly as she glared at the Seventh Doctor, even if the glare in question lacked her old intensity. "How do I know-?"

"The Doctor got angry enough with me when all I did was just save my dad; do you _really _think he'd change the _world's _history on a _whim_?" Rose said, walking over to glare at Klein herself (For a moment, Martha was struck by the slight resemblance between the two women- maybe Klein was some kind of relative?-, but pushed that aside; she had to stay focused on the present right now). "At least I just wanted some extra time with my dad; you-"

"What's going on out here?" a voice said, prompting the three Doctors and their companions to fall silent as they turned to look at the speaker, a tall man with a receding hairline wearing a slightly ill-fitting suit, standing at the arch leading into the rest of the church; evidently they'd been arguing long enough to attract some attention from the rest of the people in the building. "Who're-?"

"Just a few... friends of mine," the Ninth Doctor said at last, shrugging slightly awkwardly as he looked at the other man while indicating his other selves. "We're working on a few ideas to get out of this mess; get back to you when we've got something."

"Oh," the man said, nodding awkwardly as he looked between the new arrivals before he finally smiled uncertainly. "Well... glad to have you here."

"Glad to be here, I assure you," the Second Doctor said, grinning back at the other man, only to turn and look grimly at the Ninth Doctor. "He's the anomaly, isn't he?"

"He's my _dad_-!" Rose suddenly yelled over at the younger Doctor.

"Look, we can argue about when we all have the right to interfere with history later; right now, we just need to work out a way to drive those 'Reapers' off until we can figure out what's responsible for the rest of us showing up here," Martha said, folding her arms as she looked around at her current group. "I don't know about you, but if something was powerful enough to bring three Doctors here for some reason- even if it was just by accident-, I'd like to work out how to stop it before we try anything to tackle what was happening here."

She wasn't sure if it would really matter _how _they stopped the Reapers given the complicated nature of this particular trip- the Doctor had commented that his memories were slightly hazy given that he'd been attacked by a Reaper at one point and freely admitted that history could have been 'tweaked' in so many ways that the specifics of what happened then eluded him so long as the essential details remained the same-, but the fact that she had to figure out what had caused this mess was still accurate; they weren't going to get anywhere if something was hanging around to interfere with history and make things worse later...

Then she heard the sound of some kind of weapons fire taking place outside the church, and didn't even need to see the small fleet of ships that had just arrived to know that things were about to become even worse.

AN 6: The bit about the dark matter bombs will be explained in future chapters (I had to leave _some _questions unanswered, after all), but I hope you liked what I had here anyway; next up, it's back to the Tenth Doctor, as he faces a VERY difficult encounter with his past with only his Eighth self to help him...


	25. Captured by the Past

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: OK, since we're going back to the Tenth and Eighth Doctors with the Tenth being held captive, I wish to re-clarify that, for convenience's sake, the Tenth Doctor will just be referred to as 'the Doctor', while the Eighth Doctor will be referred to as such to distinguish him from his other self

The Legacy of Gallifrey

For a moment, as he slowly blinked his eyes open- whatever had just happened to him had _really _knocked him for a loop; he normally had an easier time waking up than this-, the Doctor wasn't sure where he was, but then he felt the familiar sensation that he hadn't felt since the destruction of Gallifrey in the corner of his mind, and everything came back.

"Oh, _no_..." he said, his voice low as he took in his surroundings. He was tied to a chair, thick ropes around his upper arms and chest binding him to the chair itself while slightly thinner ropes around his wrists and ankles immobilised his limbs- evidently chosen to limit the possibility that he'd be able to use some of his usual high-tech trickery to get out of the prisons he might have been expecting to deal with-, his coat and suit jacket lying on the ground alongside him. The room that he was currently in appeared to be just one of the many houses scattered around the empty Quamtaanian city he'd landed in earlier- he wasn't even getting the slightly _hint _of a TARDIS in his immediate vicinity-, but that didn't make it any less secure; Time Lords would be able to figure out the locks fairly easily, and he had little doubt that anything here would be deadlocked even if he did manage to get to his apparently-unsearched coat (They must have assumed there'd be no point going through his pockets given their transcendental nature).

His initial low opinion of the current situation just fell even further when a door opened and Romana walked in, followed by a man in a dark suit with a casual arrogance about him that reminded him uncomfortably of the Master back in the body he'd possessed when the two had fought each other during the Doctor's exile to Earth; the kind of danger that _wouldn't _be tempered by any sense of 'fun' that would encourage him to take his time and ensure that his victim understood what's happening.

"Ah, you're awake," Romana said, smiling slightly at him.

"Considering that you're the ones who knocked me out, you can't exactly complain that it took me a while to come to," the Doctor retorted, shrugging his shoulders as much as he was capable of doing so in his current condition. "What was the point of that, anyway?"

"I wanted to see if your mind would be more receptive to giving us what we wanted when you weren't conscious," Romana replied, her eyes narrowing slightly as she moved to stand in front of him. "Your current telepathic barriers are _very _impressive, Doctor; has the Enemy started recruiting telepaths?"

"I like my privacy these days, Romana," the Doctor replied; so long as he stuck to the essential truth without explicitly lying to Romana, he might be able to get through this without giving away too much about his future (With the Time Lords no longer present in his mind on any level, he really _did _prefer privacy in his mind- the barriers he'd established after his eighth regeneration helped him forget for a time that his people weren't there any more-, except for those occasions where he 'linked' with Martha and _wanted _to let them down).

"Is that why you're on your own?" Romana asked, smiling slightly at him. "I didn't see any sign of anyone else with you and yourself apart from Mr Krenier and the Type-"

"_Compassion_," the Doctor interjected, glaring at Romana. "And it's more than her name, Romana; she's shown more of it in the last few months- even _before _she became what she is now- than you have since the moment you regenerated-"

"Let's not get into _that _old debate again, Doctor," Romana said, waving a hand dismissively as she maintained her focused stare at him. "Since we can't get what we're looking for from you in a more subtle manner-"

"What happened to the dangers of future knowledge, Romana?" the Doctor countered, raising an eyebrow as he looked at his old companion. "Anything I give you could be invalidated simply because I tell you-!"

"With the future of Time Lord society at stake, Doctor, I'm willing to take that chance," Romana said, her eyes narrowing as she continued to stare at him. "I had hoped that _you _would have some sense of social responsibility if you've had the chance to see what your current attitude will result in-"

"One woman's life is _not _insignificant, Romana; I will _not _betray Compassion just because it's more _convenient_!" the Doctor interjected, glaring resolutely back at his old companion. "We are only as moral as our least moral representative, and you've clearly forgotten that-"

"I have a duty to our survival, Doctor," Romana said, looking coldly at the Doctor for a moment before she sighed and indicated the other man. "If you can't recognise that... well, then I'm afraid this is going to become rather unpleasant for you."

As he felt the other Time Lord begin to probe at the mental barriers protecting his mind, the Doctor could only cross his metaphorical fingers and hope for the best; no matter how much he had faith in both his own ability to resist interrogation and his younger self's ability to rescue him, what was coming up was _not _going to be pretty...

* * *

As the Eighth Doctor paused for breath in an open but abandoned house a short distance away from where they'd materialised- it wasn't the most comfortable or secure accommodation, but with Romana focused on his other self at the moment it should be enough-, he quickly went over the immediate priorities of his current situation; disable the transduction barriers and rescue his future self before Romana could get anything out of him that she could use to capture Compassion.

While a part of him had to wonder what his future self travelled in these days if Compassion was still free of Romana's attempt to capture or control her but no longer travelled with him, right now he had to focus on the more immediate priority of rescuing his future self; he could worry about how he got around in those days when he was _living _those days.

"Damn..." Fitz muttered as he hurried into the room alongside Compassion, the Type 102 as unfazed as ever despite her recent physical exertion while Fitz continued to gasp for oxygen. "This place... really... isn't... easy..."

"To find your way around in?" the Eighth Doctor finished for his friend, smiling at Fitz. "No, not really, but that's one reason it's a double-edged sword for Romana's forces; we have trouble finding our way, but she'll have just as much trouble finding us, particularly since you have the advantage of Compassion's link to me to help you two find me in this situation."

A thought occurred to him as he spoke, prompting him to turn around and look at Compassion. "On that topic, I don't suppose that you-"

"Can sense where they're keeping your future self?" Compassion answered, smiling slightly grimly at him. "Yes, actually- I think they don't seriously believe I'm as advanced as I really am; they probably assume that I'm just 'tuned in' to _you _as a physical presencerather than your specific biodata signature-, but if you're thinking of just going up to rescue him, I wouldn't recommend it; with the transduction barriers and the guards between us and him, it's unlikely we'd be able to get in close enough to even see the building he's been kept in before they capture us as well."

"Uh... sorry if this is barking up the wrong tree," Fitz asked, looking uncertainly over at the Eighth Doctor, "but if he's you, and you're going to be him, couldn't you...?"

"What; ensure that I have something on my person when I become him that I can use to create a well-timed distraction at a precise moment after I'm captured to draw attention away from everything and allow us to rescue me?" the Eighth Doctor said, pausing for a moment before he smiled at Fitz. "It's a nice idea, but unfortunately time-travel doesn't work like that; in any case, my memories of this whole experience will have to be erased after he leaves so that I don't risk becoming complacent or something like that and so take action that might result in me not becoming him, so I couldn't remember to do anything like that even if it would work."

"Ah," Fitz said.

"A nice example of out-of-the-box thinking, don't get me wrong, but it's not what we're looking for right now; we have to stay realistic," the Eighth Doctor said, looking thoughtfully between his companions for a moment before he nodded. "Compassion, do you think that you could use your chameleon circuit to impersonate a Time Lord?"

"Maybe..." Compassion said after a moment's pause, nodding thoughtfully as she looked at the Doctor. "With you and the other Time Lords here to provide a basis of what they 'feel' like, I should be able to come up with something that would deflect most casual observation..."

"That should be sufficient right now; we just need to set things up so that you don't attract _that _much attention until we've shut down the barriers long enough to rescue me," the Eighth Doctor said, before he turned to look apologetically at Fitz. "I'm sorry, but until we've rescued me, you're going to have to hide in Compassion; it would be too easy for anyone who's looking for us to try and track us down based on your heartbeat-"

"Only having one makes me stick out in this kind of situation, huh?" Fitz said, shrugging grimly as he looked over at Compassion. "Sorry..."

"It's not like we haven't had this discussion before, Fitz; just don't think too much about it, and we'll both be fine," Compassion said, even as she opened up to allow Fitz access, simultaneously expelling a long dark robe and skullcap that the Eighth Doctor didn't like the look of.

"What-?" he began.

"The robes of a Battlefield Inquisitor; I was able to catch a few transmissions from the other TARDISes while we were running here," Compassion explained, sounding slightly amused as Fitz climbed into her before she returned to normal, looking at the Doctor with a slight smile. "I also added a minor perception filter into the cap; so long as you don't encourage anyone to look _directly _at you, you should be able to get by most of the Time Lords in this city without them recognising you."

"Ah," the Doctor said, nodding briefly before he shrugged off his coat and tossed it over to Compassion before he began to put on the robe. "Well, our first priority has to be finding where Romana's forces are controlling the transduction barrier from- it can't be in one of their TARDISes because it was here before we were, so she's clearly using a local power supply of some sort-; after that, getting me out of there should be comparatively simple."

He just hoped that he wasn't underestimating his future self; he'd probably picked up a few tricks over the life between them at least that had helped him operate on his own without the Time Lords to call for 'back-up', but would they help him deal with a direct interrogation by some of what would almost certainly be Romana's best forces?

* * *

AN 2: Back to Torchwood next chapter, although I'll mention in advance that I'll be focusing more on Jack and the Doctors rather than their companions, as Jack's actions here will be most changed by the Doctor's presence...


	26. Stopping Captain John

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: And here we are; my take on "Exit Wounds", and, while the rift disturbances that the rest of the team investigated will be pretty much the same, the confrontation with John Hart at the Hub will result in a VERY different outcome for all concerned parties (A bit ambiguous about a few details in this chapter, but I think the overall plot works fine)...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Ian might still not be entirely sure about the meaning of the message that Captain Jack had received earlier, but that didn't matter in the face of the current situation; whoever that man who'd just contacted them had been, anyone who was willing to try something that would kill at least four people just to get one man's attention didn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt.

"Bastard John's taken our SUV," Owen muttered, glancing around the warehouse, currently deserted apart from Rhys's car.

"Looks like he's driven it back to Torchwood," Ianto added, glancing at a small device in his hands that probably contained some kind of tracking system.

"I'm getting readings of rift activity all over the city," Toshiko added as she studied a similar device to the one that Ianto was holding. "Major rift flares at St Helen's Hospital, the Police Headquarters and the Central IT Server Station."

Before anyone could respond to that, something rang in Gwen's pocket, the dark-haired woman quickly pulling out the small portable phone that she'd shown Ian and Barbara earlier- Ian was grateful that she hadn't minded explaining future technology to him; he hated feeling this out of the loop so close to his own time- and glancing at the screen before answering.

"Hey, Andy?" she said, apparently listening to someone on the other end of the connection before she spoke again. "OK, I'm on my way, all right?"

With that, she closed the phone and looked over at Jack. "This is him, isn't it? This is Captain John, or whatever he likes to call himself?"

"Rhys, drop Owen, Barbara and Ian at the hospital," Jack said, ignoring Gwen's comment as he began to issue his orders. "Tosh, Ianto, Leela, cover the central server building. Gwen, Jo, Susan, the police station. Then take me and the Doctors to Torchwood."

"You really think we're all going to fit in here?" Rhys asked, indicating his car (Not that Ian could blame him; it had been tight enough just getting here in that thing, and now they had four additional people to travel in it...).

"We're going to have to-" Jack began as he walked around the car to stand at the passenger door.

"Actually, you won't," the Doctor in velvet said, smiling over at the apparently-immortal American as he pulled a silver tube-like device out of his pocket. "Just give me a moment... and move back out of the way, please..."

Even as the other Doctor spoke, he used one arm to wave some of the group immediately next to him back a few paces as he adjusted controls on the tube to new settings, subsequently raising the tube above his head and pressing a button that generated a sharp sound that Ian couldn't identify. The sound faded as soon as it had started- much to Ian's relief; his ears had already started to hurt-, but it was immediately succeeded by a sudden burst of white light that vanished to show a yellow Edwardian roadster standing beside the group.

"Bessie?" Jo said, grinning as she looked over at the other Doctor.

"_Bessie_?" Owen repeated, looking incredulously at the man in velvet as his initial surprise was pushed aside at this new information. "You _named_ your sodding _car_?"

"I've made a few modifications to the old girl over the years, Doctor Harper; she's hardly 'just' a car," the other Doctor said, smiling slightly at the other man despite his harsh statement as he indicated the tube. "One of her more recent additions was a teleportation and recall circuit that transports her directly to me when I trigger the appropriate signal on my sonic screwdriver, so long as I was in the same time and on the same planet as a version of her after I installed the circuit; a complicated piece of work that I wouldn't want to use too often, and I'll need to take care not to alter that device now that I know I'll need it _now_, but under the circumstances I felt it appropriate."

"Not even seven hundred yet and still brilliant..." Jack said, smiling in a wistful manner as he looked at the Doctor in velvet.

"Pardon?" Susan asked; Ian wasn't sure if he should be concerned or amused at the suddenly guilty expression on Jack's face when he realised who was addressing him.

"Uh... right, OK," he said, nodding briefly in thanks at the other Doctor before he turned his attention back to the others. "I'll go with the Doctors, Tosh, Ianto and Leela in... Bessie; the rest of you, go with Rhys, but the original assignments still stand."

"Still going to be tight-" Rhys said.

"There's only so much that I can do in the current situation, Mr Williams; whatever these rift anomalies are, we have to sort them out if we're going to make any progress in solving our own current problem," the other Doctor said, looking apologetically at Rhys for a moment before he turned his attention back to Ian's Doctor. "Well then, old chap, shall we be off?"

"Quite right, my dear fellow, quite right," the elder-looking Doctor said, turning to look at his companions as he spoke. "Chatterton, Miss Wright, Susan, take care and stay close to our new associates; whatever is happening here, they doubtless know more about these occurrences than we do, and I trust that experience will serve to keep you safe."

Even as the two groups climbed into their 'assigned' cars, Ian wished that he felt as certain of their safety as the Doctor apparently did; incidents like their search for the Keys of the Conscience on Marinus might have shown that they could split up and come back together later, but that didn't mean that he had to like it when he was separated from the only person who could really hope to get him and Barbara home...

* * *

He might have been about to walk into his own base after it had almost certainly been taken over by the man who knew more about his true past than even the Doctor- and who was operating based on a plan that Jack just _couldn't _guess at; this went against John's usual M.O.-, but somehow Jack couldn't help but feel touched and reassured at the idea that, even without actually knowing him, the younger Doctor that he was currently working with was already willing to let him take charge of the current situation; he was actually putting the safety of his _granddaughter _in the hands of Jack and his team...

In the end, however, it was the faith that the Doctor had placed in him that left him resolved to try and stop whatever John was planning to do; with _two _Doctors to help him cope with whatever John was up to down in the Hub, the possibility that he wouldn't stop it was virtually nonexistent as far as he was concerned.

"OK," he said, as the Doctor in velvet pulled to a halt near the Plass before he turned to look at Jack with a pointed stare that was mimicked by his younger self, recognising the meaning of their expressions even if he was used to seeing them on a different face, "if we're going to do this, we need to do it quickly; John's got most of my training, but he doesn't have my experience, and we've got the added bonus that he probably thinks I'll have come here alone."

"Quite, my boy," the older-looking Doctor said, nodding contemplatively as he looked at Jack. "Apart from the entrance behind that tourist shop that we discovered earlier, is there another way to gain access to your facility?"

"There's the invisible lift up on the main plass- basically, your future self's TARDIS landed there for a while and the pavement slab it was on absorbed some properties of the chameleon circuit, with the result that people don't notice you standing on it unless you draw attention to yourself-, but John knows about that..." Jack explained, before he trailed off for a moment and snapped his fingers in inspiration. "But, again, he doesn't _know _that we'll be using it; if the two of us can draw his attention, _you _can sneak up behind him and... knock him out or something-"

"'Or something', mmm?" the older-looking Doctor said, an eyebrow pointedly raised at Jack's description of his role in the upcoming plan before he smiled and turned to his other self. "Could you give me your sonic screwdriver, young fellow?"

"Oh, of course," the Doctor in velvet said, nodding in understanding as he passed the silver tube to his younger self.

"Sneak attack?" Jack asked, smiling slightly as he looked between the young Doctors.

"Essentially, yes," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "If he has any advanced technology on his person, I should be able to use this device to shut it down, allowing the other fellow here to confront him more directly; if contact serves, you've put our lessons in Venusian aikido into excellent practise?"

"Quite so," the other Doctor replied, smiling at his younger self.

"Sounds like a good plan," Jack said, before he looked slightly awkwardly between the two Time Lords; admitting this kind of thing to a young Doctor wasn't something he was entirely comfortable with, but he felt he owed them confirmation that he knew what they were dealing with. "Just... give me a chance to talk to him first, OK? I was the only one who could ever control him; that's why the Time Agency partnered us-"

"You're a Time Agent?" the Doctor in velvet said, looking at Jack with a suddenly pointed stare that Jack didn't feel entirely comfortable with.

"I quit the agency a long time ago- they did something to my mind that I don't know about-, and I've been trying to live my life according to _your _example since I travelled with your ninth incarnation" Jack said, trying to wave the issue aside as he looked between the two Doctors, praying that they'd see the sincerity in his eyes even if he couldn't risk giving them more information about their futures...

The resigned nod from the two Doctors prompted Jack to break out in a relieved smile as he looked between the two versions of the man who'd changed his life, before he nodded resolutely and turned his attention back to the Hub. "Anyway, whatever my past with him is, the important thing right now is that we need to find out why he's doing this- mass destruction on this kind of scale isn't his style, so he's _got _to have something else in mind apart from the obvious-, and you two are the best qualified to figure out if he's using something he shouldn't have on him right now."

"Very well," the old Doctor said, checking the sonic screwdriver briefly before he looked back at Jack. "And that lift you mentioned?"

"You can control it with this," Jack said, tossing the old man his remote control for the lift. "You should be able to spot it- from everything you said to me when we last met in your future the fact that the perception filter that makes the lift invisible was acquired by contact with your TARDIS makes it obvious to you if you're looking for it-; from there, just don't do anything to draw his attention to you until you're ready to... do something to him."

"'Something'?" the Doctor repeated.

"Look, I don't know _what _he'll have on him or what I'll need to do to him before you get into position; we just need to be ready for anything, OK?" Jack said, shrugging hopelessly before he turned around and began to walk towards the tourist shop that served as the Hub's more conventional entrance, the Doctor in velvet close behind him as the old man walked over o the slab that concealed the lift.

"This is personal for you, isn't it?" the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully at Jack as they walked into the shop.

"He's only _here _because of me; if you think I _shouldn't _feel it's personal-" Jack began.

"Nothing of the sort, old chap; I've had my share of occasions where I've felt that a few of my foes come to Earth just because I'm there," the Doctor said, a grim expression flickering across his face for a moment before he shook his head and smiled as he indicated the door in front of him. "Anyway, shall we?"

Nodding in agreement, Jack walked down the corridor behind the shop and up to a round door that rolled aside like a moving cog, revealing the familiar sight of the Torchwood Hub, albeit currently disrupted by the blaring alarms and flashing lights around the room- clearly the computer had picked up the Rift activity even if the team was trying to respond to it- and the sound of _I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper _blaring out over the alarms. Taking a quick glance around, Jack extended a hand to gesture to the Doctor to halt in the entrance area; he'd prefer to keep the Doctor in reserve in case John took him by surprise somehow.

"Come on!" John said from his position on an upper level, Jack glancing up to see his former partner waving a scarf above his head between both hands with a broad grin on his face. "Sing along! It's our song!"

"We don't have a song!" Jack said, the Doctor's presence nearby momentarily forgotten in favour of keeping John's attention on him; a quick mental check of his surroundings confirmed that the Doctor in velvet was hanging back in case he needed help, but was otherwise respecting his decision to handle this alone. "And if we did have a song, it _wouldn't_ be _this _song."

"You're no fun!" John said, dropping the scarf with a pout even as he reached up to his wrist band and tapped a control, deactivating the music.

"Thank you," Jack said, staring grimly at his former partner.

"I've been here quite a while," John said, as he started to walk down the spiral staircase, apparently ignoring the elevator as it activated behind him to allow the younger Doctor access to the Hub; evidently, Jack's theory about the elevator not attracting attention if you weren't thinking about it was accurate. "What kept you?"

"We all survived," Jack said, his tone deceptively casual despite the recent events. "You know, if you're gonna set an explosion, you need to be more efficient."

"Oh, them," John said, waving a dismissive hand as he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase connecting the upper and lower levels of the Hub. "They were just prototypes, had to test out a theory."

For a moment, the two ex-Time Agents simply stood and looked at each other before John spoke again.

"How are they all?" he asked, in a tone that Jack could have almost considered concerned if it wasn't for the fact that he'd caused the damage in the first place. "The little team?"

"What do you want?" Jack asked, his voice cold as he stared at John, ignoring the elevator as it descended to the ground behind John and to the right; so long as John stayed focused on him, the elder-looking Doctor could still take him out if he timed everything correctly...

"I want you to know that I love you," John replied, shrugging slightly as he looked back at Jack, as though he was slightly offended that Jack hadn't realised the answer himself.

"Funny way of showing it," Jack noted grimly.

"No, seriously," John said, still looking at him for a moment before he turned away. "You have to understand, I really do love you."

Before Jack could say anything in response, John picked something up from the table behind him, subsequently spinning around to fire two large machine-guns directly at Jack, leaving the Torchwood commander with only a few brief moments to register that the old-looking Doctor was coming up behind him...

* * *

"Because this," John noted, walking over to study Jack's body as it lay in the accumulated water at the bottom of the fountain- he had to wonder why they kept that stuff there- "is gonna get nasty."

"Indeed," a voice suddenly said from behind him, John turning around just in time to see an old geezer with long white hair dressed in what looked like an Edwardian suit, a walking-stick in his left hand as his right hand held a silver tube of some sort out in front of him. Before John could react, the man pressed a button on the tube and aimed it at John's vortex manipulator, the device sparking violently before all the lights on it went out, leaving John staring at the object in shock for a few moments before he looked up at the old man.

"What... what the _Hell_...?" he began.

"I simply overloaded that piece of claptrap you consider a time machine, my boy," the old man said, his eyes narrowed as he glared at John. "All its functions have been suspended for the immediate moment, including your control over this facility's systems-"

"Hold on; you _shut it down_?" John repeated, looking between his wrist and the old man, trying to find some kind of deception that he already knew wasn't going to be there; the last time this thing had looked this off was when he'd first put it on...

"Completely," the old man said, his stance shifting slightly as he looked resolutely at John. "I admit to knowing little about what you're planning here, my boy, but anything with a cross-temporal signalling device attached to it struck me as something you should not possess-"

"Oh, thank whatever passes for a deity!" John said, grinning at his burning wrist for a moment before he grabbed the elder-looking Doctor's face in both hands, pulling the Time Lord towards him long enough for a brief kiss before he stepped back, still grinning broadly at the other man even as the Time Lord could do nothing but blink in surprise.

"Ah," he said at last, looking over at where Jack lay face-down in the water before he turned to face John again. "So... shall I assume that you no longer have any interest in killing Captain Harkness's associates?"

"Never wanted to do it in the first place, but-" John began.

"That's something that's always encouraging to hear, my fellow," another voice suddenly said, John turning around to see a man in his mid-fifties with a thick shock of white hair and wearing a velvet smoking jacket and a frilly shirt that put John in mind of those stupid 'Austin Powers' films. "Would you care to clarify what you mean by that?"

"There was a bomb attached to that thing, along with a surveillance circuit to monitor my every word and action; whole reason I was even doing this in the first place was because he'd blow me up if I didn't," John said, shrugging as he looked at the two men, extending his hand so that they could take a closer look at where the strap merged into his flesh; these two might be unfamiliar to him, but if Jack let them into this place he supposed that he could trust them (Jack always had stricter standards when it came to the people he _chose _to work with). "The bastard actually bonded the damn thing to my _wrist _so that I'd have no choice but to do what he wanted or get blown up; why else do you think I did such a crap job with planting the bombs for Captain Jack's team?"

For a moment, the cold stares between the two men were enough to convince John that he'd said the wrong thing, but then they looked back at him with a more critical expression and he allowed himself to relax slightly; they might not be entirely happy with his reasoning, but they were at least willing to give his explanation some kind of consideration.

"Right then," the man in velvet said, looking over at where Jack's body lay in the water. "In that case, our immediate priority right now is for Captain Harkness to revive so that he can verify your story; after that, you can tell us more about what you were trying to accomplish here and we'll deal with the situation accordingly."

"Fair 'nough," John said, nodding in relief at the two men, even as he privately hoped that he hadn't miscalculated the competency of Jack's team; they'd been good enough to save him from that booby trap the last time he'd been here, but if any of them got hurt because of him Jack was _never _going to trust him when he woke up...

* * *

AN 2: Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a while until you hear more about that; coming up, it's back to Donna and the secrets of Zeta Minor...


	27. Darkness on Zeta Minor

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A couple of additional clues revealed here about the identity of the main villain and his allies is revealed here- one of the allies should be appearing in the next chapter with this particular team if all goes well-, but you'll need to wait a while longer until you explicitly learn just _who's _behind this...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Donna wasn't sure what should be freaking her out more; being stuck on a planet linked to a universe of anti-matter, being stuck here with _three _younger versions of the Doctor, or being stuck here with at least three of his old and supposedly-dead enemies- from what the Doctor and Martha had told her individual Daleks were generally pretty interchangeable, so it wasn't exactly prejudiced to think of them as one thing- with no idea how they were all here?

Being stuck here with three Doctors was definitely freaky, but the multiple villains here were _definitely _a serious point of concern that she couldn't forget just because she wanted to...

Still, so far she had to admit that the Doctors' plan to infiltrate the camp was going fairly well. With the brown-haired Doctor- apparently his fourth incarnation, based on what he'd told her earlier- leading the way, their small group had managed to climb down the mountain-side to the camp without attracting any undue attention to themselves, and had subsequently sneaked into the camp. Donna had been interested to see that what she'd taken to be tents from a distance reminded her of old History lessons about the post-war reconstruction and the focus on pre-fabricated houses when she saw them close up, but this wasn't the time to worry about things like that; she had more immediate priorities than analysing the design of the enemy base.

Quite frankly, patrols were almost ridiculously easy to avoid here- Donna guessed that it was probably because nobody in the enemy camp believed that they'd even be found by somebody else in the first place-; the Daleks were intimidating, but that eye-stalk thing gave them such limited vision that it was fairly easy to work out where to stand so that the Daleks didn't seem them.

Admittedly, Donna's faith in the Doctors' ability to work out the best places to stand to avoid being discovered made it slightly easier to feel somewhat relaxed, but considering the potentially hostile environment they were dealing with here, she still retained a certain degree of anxiety; from the Doctor's stories about them, Daleks didn't strike her as the kind of race who'd bother to patrol an area that they probably thought they'd secured already.

Besides, even without her faith in the Doctors, both of them seemed to be confident that 'K9' (And she had to wonder what made the Doctor call his robot dog something like _that_; it was really kind of cliché and just seemed a bit too obvious for the guy) would be able to alert them if they were ever about to go the wrong way, and one thing she'd _never _had any doubts about when it came to the Doctor was his knack with machinery...

Despite all that, it was slightly comforting to know that she wasn't the only person present who was having issues with this whole mess; Claire Aldwych didn't exactly seem that comfortable in this whole mess, even if she figured that it was only because the other woman had less experience than she did. The Doctors also looked a bit anxious, but they still seemed to be relatively in control compared to her and Claire; it didn't strike her as anything more than the usual fear she'd expect from someone dealing with a race who'd been their greatest enemies for centuries...

Donna shook her head to force herself to stop her current analysis; right now, her main goal had to be to focus on getting into the main area and getting whatever information they needed to figure out what was going on here, rather than trying to figure out the psychology of this whole mess. The idea of the Daleks maintaining a regular patrol schedule because they didn't actually expect to be attacked made sense, but they couldn't afford to _completely _depend on a possible pattern when up against stakes like this...

Finally, they reached the central construct the Doctors had identified as the most likely location for Greel and Chen's headquarters- of the various buildings here that looked like they might be used for storage, this was the only facility that seemed to have an actual door without any kind of security on it- and sneaked into the building, the Doctors quickly heading for a large computer terminal opposite the door. Glancing around the room as Claire and K9 shut the door behind them, Donna noted a few smaller terminals and monitors, along with a couple of panels in the walls that could be fold-out beds or something along those lines, but she decided not to analyse those too closely; they were here for facts, not to study the architecture.

Still, Donna had to admit that she wasn't that concerned about it; the way things had gone lately, she was grateful for a chance to take even a brief break, slightly relaxed by the knowledge that the Doctors and K-9 would alert her and Claire to any danger...

"So," Claire said after a few moments of silence as the Doctors studied the information the computer in front of them, a glance around leaving neither woman with any ideas what they could do to contribute to the current search, "how'd you end up working with the Doctor?"

"'Working with'?" Donna repeated, looking at Claire in surprise. "You don't travel with him?"

"Travel with him?" Claire said, looking back at her in confusion. "I just had him drop in on me while I was in protective custody after a friend of mine recorded a Nazi ceremony of some sort; I'm not going to just... run off with him or something..."

"You will," Donna said, smiling as she looked at the young woman, recalling some of the tales that Martha had told her about the other old companions she'd run into during her time with the Doctor. "Not because of _him_, necessarily, but because of what he can show you."

"And what can he show me, exactly?" Claire asked, raising a critical eyebrow.

"Let's just say this planet's pretty basic compared to _some _of the stuff I've seen since I started travelling with my Doctor," Donna replied, smiling as she studied the building around her. "I've been to Pompeii before the eruption, a planet in the Andromeda galaxy, met a race who literally hold their brains in their hands, dropped in on the biggest library in the known _universe_..."

She shrugged as she looked over at Claire. "Trust me on this; when you get the chance to go home, _insist _on a few more trips to make up for everything you might have gone through with him so far."

"I'll... keep that in mind," Claire said, smiling slightly uncertainly before she shook her head at Donna. "It's just been a long few days; I started doing an expose on an abandoned village and now here I am trying to stop a couple of deranged whackos from the far future using anti-matter as a power source on a _detour _from what was meant to be a search for a Nazi base..."

"Nazis?" Donna said, her mind briefly flashing back to the story the Doctor had told her and Martha a while back about an encounter with the Fourth Reich and Hitler's son, but stopped herself before could say anything; she didn't know if it was the same thing, and this wasn't the time to risk the timeline any further than she already was just by being here. "Well, you're coping pretty well, anyway."

"Oh, I'm completely freaking out inside, I promise; I just think we're past the point where me _showing _it would do any good, so I'm just focusing on the main issue of staying alive and I'll worry about anything else later," Claire said, a slightly grim smile on her face as she looked at Donna, before she assumed a more thoughtful expression. "Uh... how did you end up travelling with him... in the future, I mean?"

"Materialised in the TARDIS on my wedding day because my fiancé had been working with an alien spider to use me as a catalyst to produce this rare type of energy that only exists inside TARDISes these days," Donna said, making a mental note to make sure that Claire didn't tell the Doctor any of this later on; he might not remember it if a sufficient amount of time elapsed between now and then (Or whatever terminology should apply when talking about something that had happened from Donna's perspective but _hadn't _happened from the perspective of the Doctors who were currently here; tenses were really _ridiculously _complicated when dealing with time travel).

"Well well well..." the Fourth Doctor said, contemplatively studying the information that he and his future self were pulling up on the screen in front of them.

"What is it?" Claire asked, the earlier conversation forgotten as she and Donna walked over to join the Doctors as they studied the screen.

"Well, we've managed to find what seem to be Greel and Chen's files on this project," the Fifth Doctor said, looking back at his companions with a brief smile before his expression became more awkward. "The only problem is that they don't provide any idea about how they got here; the closest thing here is something they refer to as... 'the Dark One'."

Donna was far from comforted at the grim expression on the Doctors' faces when they repeated the statement they'd just read; they might look slightly sceptical about whatever implications were aroused by the name at first glance, but she'd travelled with a Doctor who'd had _far _more practice at keeping secrets...

"Could it be?" the Fourth Doctor asked, glancing uncertainly over at his future self.

"I don't know," the Fifth Doctor replied, shaking his head grimly. "It's possible, certainly- this kind of thing _would _fit in with his goal of causing chaos, and we're fairly far into the future by this point-, but I can't see him being able to arrange for them to come to this time zone..."

"Could we get a cast list for those of us who _don't _know who you're talking about?" Claire asked, looking in exasperation at the Doctors.

"Just... an old enemy we'd rather we didn't have to deal with again," the Fifth Doctor said, before he shook his head and turned his attention back to the files, moving past the records he'd been studying earlier to pull up another couple of files, shaking his head grimly as he took in what was in front of him. "Oh, no..."

"Bad news?" Claire asked.

"Well, on the one hand, we have at least been able to confirm that we were right about what the Daleks, Greel and Chen are doing here," the Fifth Doctor said, looking back at Claire and Donna with obvious apprehension on his face. "Just like the last people to attempt this kind of experiment, the Daleks are mutating some of their number by exposing them to anti-matter, and then they leave the mutated Daleks in some of the other buildings here- one Dalek each in a secure construct, thus preventing them potentially destroying each other and helping the planet 'realise' what's happening-, while the actual anti-matter is taken off-planet in an automated ship. The actual storage facility is located in a satellite in a geosynchronous orbit above the mine, thus allowing them to quickly return the anti-matter to Zeta Minor if something goes wrong while also limiting the possibility of further mutations being caused before they can properly analyse the anti-matter."

"How are they coming along with their research into controlling that... anti-matter stuff?" Claire asked.

"According to this, they've yet to get very far beyond the basics," the Fourth Doctor replied. "Harnessing the power's fairly straightforward, of course- when it comes to anti-matter, the trick is storing it correctly so that it _won't _release that power-, but harnessing it in a useful manner is something else entirely; it's hard to release the power in anything other than short, sudden bursts."

"Which isn't much use if you're trying to use anything that needs to stay on for longer than a few seconds, right?" Donna asked.

"Quite," the Fifth Doctor said. "Greel naturally wants to use it as a substitute power source for his Time Cabinet- he apparently believes that it can be used to generate a counter-frequency wave that will serve to stabilise the mutative effects of the zygma beam he used to power his equipment-, but Chen and the Daleks are more straightforward; Chen just wants power and the Daleks think that they can use the zygma beam as a potential weapon due to its mutative effects on living tissue as well as the anti-matter."

"And, lemme guess; since they spend all their time in those casing things, the zygma beam thing wouldn't affect _them_?" Donna asked grimly.

"Actually, according to this there's speculation that the mutations the Daleks have experienced already would prevent the zygma energy having that much effect on them anyway, but your essential reasoning is accurate," the Fourth Doctor said in solemn confirmation. "If the Daleks can harness zygma energy, they could be able to use it as a nuclear-level weapon against their enemies, while they themselves would be relatively unharmed by it."

"So, bad?" Claire asked.

"_Extremely_ bad," the Fifth Doctor said grimly. "We're talking an equivalent threat to the Nazis acquiring the atomic bomb before the Americans; the results would be devastating at best."

"Ah," Claire said, swallowing apprehensively before she turned her attention back to the Doctors. "That... sounds bad."

"To say the least," the Fourth Doctor said, before he turned his attention back to the screen. "What I _don't _understand is how Greel and Chen got here; as I said, they both died centuries ago, and they'd have no way to reach this location even if they _hadn't _died..."

"Master," K9 said, turning from where he had been studying the surroundings while the others continued their search. "TARDIS time capsule detected in immediate vicinity."

"_What_?" the Doctors said, spinning around to look sharply at K9.

"I take it you're not referring to _our _TARDISes, huh?" Donna asked, unable to resist smiling slightly as she looked at the robot dog.

"Affirmative, Mistress Donna," K9 confirmed, spinning around to indicate a door at the other end of the interior that Donna hadn't noticed earlier. "Sensors indicate presence of a TARDIS transport capsule behind that door."

Glancing over at the door, Donna was surprised to see that it was a simple white structure, somehow creating a subtle but significant contrast with the relatively grey nature of its surroundings. For a moment, the former temp had trouble placing why she found the circular formation on the door so familiar, but then her mind almost subconsciously made the circles smaller and she realised that they resembled the roundels she'd grown so used to seeing on the TARDIS's walls.

"Oh my God..." she said, looking over at the Doctors. "Is that-?"

"A door leading into a TARDIS?" the Fifth Doctor finished for her, nodding grimly at her question. "Correct, although I'm assuming that it's a fairly basic one; I'm guessing that the ship's chameleon circuit is so broken it's only able to assume that relatively basic disguise."

"Sorry; its _what_ is broken?" Claire asked, looking at the two Doctors in confusion.

"The Doctor's ship's meant to be capable of changing its appearance so that it turns into something that'll blend in with whatever'll look inconspicuous when it's landed, but that bit broke down on his ship some years ago and he's never gotten around to fixing it for good," Donna said, shrugging slightly as she answered Claire's question, recalling the story that the Doctor and Martha had once shared with her (She decided not to mention the couple of occasions where the Doctors _had _managed to fix the circuit, given that they'd always reset it back to its original shape anyway).

"The question is, what's a TARDIS doing _here_?" the Fourth Doctor said, walking up to the door with a contemplative expression on his face. "It's not impossible to assume that someone managed to hi-jack it, but the odds of Greel or Chen controlling it precisely enough to come here without any prior instructions or information about how to control it have to be virtually non-existent..."

Even as the Doctor spoke, his fingers came in contact with the door for a few seconds, causing him to pause as his eyes widened in shock before he stood back from the door, horror all over his face.

"It's mine..." he said, his tone suggesting that a part of him wanted to deny his own conclusion.

"It's _what_?" Claire said in shock.

"This... it's _our _TARDIS," the Fourth Doctor said, looking in horror back at his future self. "Whatever brought Greel and Chen here... they used our TARDIS to do it."

"Oh no..." the Fifth Doctor said, pulling a key out of his pocket and hurrying over to the door, shoving it into the lock and opening the door, revealing a dark, twisted sight on the other side of the door as vast gothic pillars wound up towards a vaunted ceiling, five corridors branching off from the central hall as strange gold lines formed an unusual pattern on the floor. A TARDIS-like console was in the middle of the room, but this console was stained with blood and its controls seemed somehow rougher, as though they'd been put together by a student with only a basic idea of what he was meant to be creating in the end, and even now the edges of the explicitly hexagonal console- as opposed to the rounded edges of the console she knew- seemed to be frayed at the edges, as though they'd been subject to some kind of incredible strain

"Oh my God..." Donna said, staring in shock at the interior, the glimpse of roundels in the walls the only real confirmation that she was in any kind of TARDIS; the console was so battered she'd more expect it to be a console that had been discarded from the main ship for some reason. "What the _Hell _happened here?"

Somehow, what she was looking at affected her for more than just the obvious reasons; there was some kind of... _feeling_... in the room around her that Donna didn't like, making her feel like something was crawling up her spine underneath her skin...

"I don't know..." the Fourth Doctor said, looking grimly at the control console in front of him for a moment before he turned around and walked back into the main room of the tent, leaving the others to follow him (Not that Donna could blame him; something about that place gave her the _creeps_).

"All that damage..." the Fifth Doctor said, his eyes wide with obvious horror as he looked back at the now-closed door behind them, shuddering as he spoke. "Something of unimaginable psychokinetic energy was stored in there..."

"Look, we know what we're up against now; couldn't we take the TARDIS to this... satellite thing and-?" Donna began, looking urgently between the Doctors, trying not to think too much about the implications of that discovery; they'd worry about what had happened to that TARDIS's Doctor when they'd stopped the Daleks.

"And do what the Daleks were intending to do in the event of an accident and crash it back into the central pit?" the Fourth Doctor finished, exchanging uncertain glances with his fifth self, even if Donna noted a slight edge of relief at the opportunity not to think about what they'd just seen. "Can we do it?"

"Well, my own piloting systems have improved considerably since I was you, and I think we can safely assume that the other fellow's picked up a few tricks that we don't know yet..." the Fifth Doctor said, shrugging slightly before he looked grimly up at the ceiling. "This isn't going to be easy..."

"Well, on the bright side, the only people here are a bunch of psychotic aliens and a couple of men who should be dead already; it's not like we'd be doing anything _that _wrong," Claire said, her initial urgency fading as the Doctors looked at her in a very pointed manner. "Look, I'm not happy about killing people, but you said yourself that these 'Daleks' aren't exactly pleasant company, and those other two should be dead anyway-"

"Alert," K9 said, looking over at the Doctors with as much apprehension as a robotic dog could express, cutting off Claire before she could say anything else. "Dalek life-signs are approaching this facility."

"Oh, _nuts_..." Donna said, groaning before she turned back to face the Doctors. "I assume 'run' would be appropriate?"

"Quite," the Fifth Doctor said, glancing back at K9. "K9, if you could please provide us with an exit?"

"Affirmative," K9 said, turning to fire a laser beam at the nearest wall, the structure quickly collapsing before the robot dog's blast; evidently the Daleks or whoever had built this hadn't felt the need to make _this _place particularly strong.

"_Run_!" the Fifth Doctor yelled, hurrying out of the hole only to collide with a man in a long black cloak that Donna immediately recognised as the figure the Doctors had earlier identified as Magnus Greel.

"Wait-!" she said, turning to look at the Fourth Doctor.

"GO!" the still-standing Doctor yelled, grabbing her wrist and running for the hole, K9 close behind them as the younger-looking Doctor seemed to be struggling with Greel on the ground. "Chen and Greel will want to question him; we have to get out of here before more Daleks show up!"

Donna didn't stop to question the Doctor's advice- he'd fought these guys for centuries, so it seemed pretty obvious that he'd know what they would do in this kind of situation-; she just gritted her teeth and ran after the younger Doctor, an inane part of her mind noting with some surprise that he was about as fast as the Doctor she knew despite all the additional layers he was wearing; Time Lords were surprisingly resilient...

After a few moments of anxious running, the Fourth Doctor finally came to a halt, K9 a short distance behind the Doctor and Donna as they exchanged anxious glances with each other, Donna cursing what she'd only just realised; at some point in their mad dash to escape, they'd lost track of Claire.

In other words, right now the middle Doctor of the three that were currently on this planet was stuck in the middle of a base populated entirely by his greatest enemies and a couple of total loonies, along with an innocent and highly inexperienced girl.

Whatever they were going to do next, it was _clear _that they were going to need a plan to get the Daleks' latest two captives out of this mess as soon as possible...

_God_, Donna hated it when people were being held captive; like they didn't have _enough_ to worry about right now?

* * *

AN 2: To anyone who thinks they know where the TARDIS here came from, please send me your thoughts in a PM to limit spoilers for those who don't know.

AN 3: Next up, it's back to Martha, as she gets a chance to make a _slightly _more obvious impact on whatever their unknown foes are planning to do...


	28. Plans in a Church

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As she stood grimly in the church entrance, looking out of a small window as the Doctors brainstormed over their possible plans in the back of the church and the other three companions simply wandered out of a lack of anything else to do, Martha wondered just how she was ever going to manage to get the timeline remotely back on track from what it turned into since she'd arrived here.

Her Doctor's memory of this situation might have been confusing- apparently he'd been temporarily erased at one point and his memories of what had happened was slightly distorted despite Time Lords normally being immune to such changes in history-, but she definitely knew that _none _of this was meant to be happening right now. What should be a relatively straightforward case of history being changed and the Doctor trying- and failing- to save the day without anyone dying now involved two past versions of the Doctor, a Nazi companion who'd been about to be erased from existence for changing history on an even larger scale, time-manipulating aliens from some higher dimension, dark matter explosions in the Time Vortex, Reapers swooping down on London, and a small fleet of what the Second and Seventh Doctors identified as Selachian warships bombing the streets.

Admittedly, the Selachian ships were currently distracted by the Reapers- from what Martha could see from the window the two groups were more focused on attacking each other rather than anything else; she was guessing that the Selachians were registering as a greater 'wound' to Time than Pete Tyler's survival right now-, but that could only buy them so much time, and she somehow doubted that the Selachians had enough time-travelling ships to take out _all _of the Reapers even if she was willing to consider genocide an option...

It was official; this situation was getting rapidly out of control, and she didn't even know if she could count on the only people equipped to get her out of this mess. As much as she trusted the Doctor as a person, she still remembered what the other eight Doctors had said during her brief 'talk' with them after the destruction of Japan about the Ninth Doctor's potentially questionable mental state at this point, and Rose's presence didn't make her feel much better.

Rose might not have married the Master yet, and Martha was trying not to judge her for something she hadn't done at this point in time- particularly not when Jack and the Doctor had assured her that the Master had manipulated Rose to make her like that; it didn't totally excuse what she'd done, but Martha understood that Rose wouldn't have become that psychotic on her own-, but it was hard to forget what her predecessor would do to the Doctor _later_; just because she hadn't done it yet didn't make it easy for Martha to forget the fact that she was _capable _of doing that kind of thing...

"Are you all right?" a voice asked, Martha glancing back to find herself facing Serena, who was looking at her with obvious concern.

"Just... worried, really; this is all a bit more than I was expecting when my Doctor sent me back," Martha replied, shrugging awkwardly as she looked at the other woman, trying not to show too much reaction to the idea that she was talking to another member of the Doctor's race; after so long helping the Doctor cope with the fact that he was the last of his kind, it was kind of strange interacting with another Time Lord who _wasn't _just another version of her lover (She didn't really count the Master as a Time Lord given how psychotic he'd been; he was an anomaly at best).

"You never actually explained _why _he did that..." Serena said, looking slightly uncertainly at Martha, as though a part of her was reluctant to ask such a personal question.

"Sent me back?" Martha asked, shrugging slightly as Serena nodded in confirmation. "We realised that there was a problem in his timeline in three separate locations, and the Doctor opened a time corridor or something like that to send me and... another friend... back to two of the locations while he went to the third-"

"And he didn't think to ask someone _else _to do something so dangerous?" Serena asked, raising a pointed eyebrow as she looked at Martha. "I was aware that the Doctor had a reputation for interference, but to interfere in his _own _timeline-"

"It was an abrupt attack and he didn't have the time to call for back-up," Martha said, hoping that she could avoid giving away too much by providing the essential truth about the details that had led to her being in this position; the last thing she wanted was for another Time Lord to learn about the Time War in advance. "Trust me, he wouldn't do this if he didn't think he had to; we're-"

The sound of an explosion outside prompted Martha and Serena to return their attention to the window, just in time to see what looked like a missile strike one of the Selachian ships hovering above the city. The actual attack didn't seem to do that much damage- the Selachian ships had clearly been designed to withstand a lot more punishment than that-, but the force of the explosion was still something to be concerned about; Martha might not know as much about history as the Doctor, but she somehow doubted that anything in this area at this time should have the power to do even that much damage.

"Oh no..." Serena whispered, her eyes widening in horrified realisation.

"You recognise it?" Martha asked.

"It _looked _like the kind of weapons the Doctor and I witnessed during a recent trip to an alternate timeline; we were actually just trying to go back to the moment when history diverged when we ended up here," Serena answered, her expression becoming grim as she looked over at Martha. "But that doesn't explain what they're doing in _this _world..."

"Could the dark matter explosion be breaking down the inter-universal barriers _inside _reality?" Martha asked; she might not have the Doctor's knowledge of Time, but she hadn't spent the last few years with him without picking up some kind of understanding of the essentials of time travel. "The Doctors mentioned something about temporal overlap before you joined us..."

"Multiple alternate realities converging on one spatial/temporal location; it's _possible_, certainly," Serena confirmed, looking apprehensively out of the window as further missiles were launched at the Selachians. "If only I knew where those ships came from..."

"That would be my fault, actually," a familiar voice said.

"Yours?" Martha asked, turning to look in surprise at the Seventh Doctor as he stood behind them, grimly leaning on his umbrella. "How?"

"Well, it was an alternate version of me in the timeline that Klein created after she stole the TARDIS- apparently the me of that reality gave the Selachians time-travel technology in 2144 so that they could attack the Reich moonbase in 2044-, but I have to recognise my even indirect responsibility for their presence here," the Seventh Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he looked at his past and future companions. "I know that I never did it myself, but that a part of me is _capable _of something like that..."

"You all make mistakes," Martha said, smiling encouragingly at him. "You can't change the past- the you I travel with actually gave me a pretty good reason for why he doesn't want to do that-; all you can do is learn from it and avoid repeating your old mistakes."

"We cannot know what events lead your other self to make such a decision, Doctor, but I can't think of any rules even in Gallifreyian law that would prompt anyone to condemn you for something a parallel version of yourself did," Serena said, giving the other Time Lord a smile of her own.

"Yeah, yeah, patting each other on the back and apologising's all well and good," the Ninth Doctor's voice said, the three turning around as the taller, leather-clad Doctor walked back into the church's entrance. "It's not goin' to get us anywhere right now; all we _need _to do right now is come up with a plan to get out of this mess."

"Where are the others?" Martha asked.

"Just back in there," the Seventh Doctor said, indicating the door that his future self had just walked through. "I was coming here to let you know that we'd appreciate your insight; we've been trying to come up with a few ideas, but we're still a bit stuck for what we're going to actually _do _in the end."

"OK," Martha said, pushing the earlier conversation aside as she looked at the Doctors. "Let's go."

As she walked back into the main church, Martha briefly noted a woman that she assumed from the Doctor's description was Rose's mother Jackie looking at Klein as though she was trying to determine where she'd seen the Nazi before, but this wasn't the time to worry about the implications of that; they had more urgent matters to tackle right now.

"Ah, good, I'm back," the Second Doctor said, smiling at the Seventh and Ninth Doctors as they joined the group before he turned to look at Martha and Serena. "How are things outside?"

"About what you'd expect," Serena said grimly. "The temporal overlap's getting worse- I think I saw the Countess's forces, or maybe just one of her adversaries- launch a missile at one of the Selachian warships, and those 'Reaper' things are still tearing through the ships; the Selachians are trying to fight back, but there's only so much you can do when dealing with something that doesn't technically exist in the same time zone as you do."

"Right," the Seventh Doctor said, nodding grimly as he looked at his other selves and their companions. "First things first; we have to figure out what caused those explosions-"

"Hold on; you're focusing on the explosions?" the Second Doctor said, looking sharply at his future self. "We're experiencing a reality breakdown-!"

"And anything we do here would just be treating the symptoms," the Ninth Doctor said, looking pointedly at the youngest Doctor. "He's right; if we're going to stop this, we need to find the cause-"

"But we can't just leave everyone here!" the Second Doctor protested, waving his arms urgently at the people sitting in the main church. "Even if we solve this problem-"

"Which is why we're going to need your TARDISes," the Ninth Doctor said.

"Our what?" the other two Doctors said, clearly surprised at this new turn in the conversation.

"The link between the box and the internal dimensions in my TARDIS was severed when the initial wound was created; right now, all I've got going for me is an indestructible police box," the Ninth Doctor explained grimly. "But if I remember correctly, right now you two are travelling in a Type 97 and a Type 70, right?"

"You're not using your TARDIS?" Martha asked, looking at the Second Doctor in surprise; she'd known that the Seventh's TARDIS wasn't his normal one instantly, but it was still disturbing to hear that he wasn't the only Doctor present who wasn't using that battered old Police Box.

"Apparently, the Agency doesn't feel that a Type 40 is appropriate for undercover work of the kind that I was doing for them," the Second Doctor said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Poppycock, I tell you; the old girl had never failed me when I was working alone, and that new chameleon circuit just makes it hard to remember which tree's meant to be yours when you need to leave in a hurry..."

"If you'd only pay more attention when we landed, Doctor-" Serena began.

"_The point is_," the Ninth Doctor said, smiling slightly grimly as he looked between his younger selves, "I picked up a trick or two since I was you, and I _think _I've got a plan or two about how to buy us some time to track the source of this mess, but we're going to need to use the Type 97 for that."

"What?" Serena said, looking sharply at the Ninth Doctor. "But-"

"If we can put everything back afterwards, you'll be able to recover your ship; if we don't..." the Ninth Doctor said, his voice pointedly trailing off as he glanced out of the nearest window before he turned back to Serena. "Well, I'm sure I don't need to draw you a picture."

"True," Serena said, shaking her head for a moment before she turned back to the Ninth Doctor, pulling a small device out of her pocket. "Well, here's the emergency recall circuit- I thought that it might be an idea to have a means of bringing the TARDIS to us after the way things went last time; we can't always guarantee having a suitable ally in the right place, after all-; will that help?"

"Perfect," the Ninth Doctor said, ignoring the Second's indignant protests at Serena's assumption as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the device he now held in his hands. "Just give me a chance to give this thing a quick boost, and we _should _be ready soon..."

Martha didn't know what the oldest available Doctor was planning, but she just hoped that it would be something that would allow them to put some kind of 'freeze' on this mess so that he could come back later and resolve the crisis the way he'd sorted it out originally; she didn't mean to sound heartless, but she didn't want to risk changing her own history by creating the possibility that the Doctor would never be in a position to meet her (How could she predict what would happen to Rose Tyler's life if she had a chance to grow up with her father?).

Even if the Doctor could improve what had happened originally, he _couldn't_; Rose's life was tied in to far too many events in the Doctor's future for Martha to let him change it...

* * *

AN: Back to the Eighth Doctor in the next chapter; hope you like it


	29. Facing Your Past

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Back to the Eighth and Tenth Doctors, with a brief bonus reference to "The Eight Doctors" for good measure (The Sixth Doctor 'segment' of the novel, if you're interested in more specific detail); it's a bit short, but I do have a couple of longer ones coming up to make up for it...

AN 2: For anyone who wants to know, I've made some minor modifications to my 'Silence in the Library'/'Forest of the Dead' chapter based on both recent information regarding River Song's history and my own plans for her in future stories; feel free to check them out if you want.

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As he stood in front of the building that Compassion had identified as the source of the transduction barriers that they were trying to shut down, the Eighth Doctor spared a moment to reach out and make contact with his future self, relieved when he 'felt' his other self's presence; he wasn't entirely comfortable, but at least he seemed to be fairly intact, wherever he was.

He couldn't believe that Romana had fallen this far; her last incarnation had remained in E-space to save the Tharil's from enslavement, and now she was essentially torturing _him _to learn information about the future?

After all the effort he'd gone to in the past to try and avoid learning anything about the war, to have the High Council violate everything they'd ever stood for that effortlessly when faced with such a potentially minor opportunity...

It was disheartening, to say the least; there were probably stronger terms that he could use, but to actually voice them would have made this situation too real for him, and he was having a hard enough time as it was.

To think that Romana would go this far, after all her efforts to reform their people into something that wouldn't hide away from the rest of the universe...

Even after he'd witnessed her cold resolution to 'acquire' Compassion during their confrontation in Avalon, it was still hard for him to reconcile the young Time Lady who'd been sent to him during the first search for the Key to Time with the cold leader who was even now probably 'questioning' his future self.

"Are you all right?" Compassion asked, looking slightly uncertainly at him through her current disguise, having used the chameleon circuit to turn herself into a slightly saggy red-haired man with a thin face that looked like it would be better suited to a smile than the frown that it currently possessed.

"Just... worried about myself, I suppose," the Eighth Doctor said, turning his attention contemplatively back to the large building in front of them with the distinctive antenna and dishes on the roof that seemed to be used for radio transmissions the universe over. "Anyway, this seems to be the source of the barriers we're looking for; we'd better see about getting inside."

"And you're certain it will be as simple to disable them as you appear to think it will?" Compassion asked, looking pointedly at him. "Keep in mind that we are up against _your _people; you've told us more than once how dangerous they can be-"

"This entire facility has the air of something that was set up at the last minute; even with our resources, they'll just be using what was already there rather than adding anything particularly detailed to the systems," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at Compassion. "Quamtaanian technology might not have branched out into temporal physics before they were destroyed, but their energy production abilities were certainly sufficient to maintain this kind of barrier; all Romana's forces would need to do is channel the power correctly, so all that _I _need to do is find the power source and shut it off."

He couldn't help but hope that it would be as simple as he was trying to make it sound; it had been so long since Gallifrey had even had to face any kind of actual war that he had no way of knowing what changes they might have made to their usual methods of operation or other such issues...

* * *

Still trapped in his chair, the Doctor wasn't sure what was worse; being tortured by his old companion for information that she should know he couldn't give her, or being faced with the possibility of doing something that he really wanted to do while also knowing that he was unable to do it regardless.

Even with everything he'd told Martha after Pompeii about how he couldn't change history whenever he wanted without becoming the Master, imposing his will when the universe didn't fit what he wanted to see, there was still that part of him that wanted to be able to save his people, to undo everything he'd had to do during that terrible confrontation with Davros or Grandfather Paradox (He knew what had happened _originally_, but when the rest of the universe 'insisted' that Faction Paradox had never existed it was so much harder to retain a memory of the original timeline)...

"Come now, Doctor," Romana's voice said, breaking into the Doctor's thoughts once again, the Doctor drawing his attention back to his former companion as she looked almost pityingly at him, "this really isn't getting us anywhere-"

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor replied, trying to sound cheerier than he was as he indicated the interrogator beside Romana. "I'm certainly giving _him _a good telepathic work-out, aren't I?"

"Quite," the man said, restraining the slight tremor in his stance as he looked at the still-trapped Time Lord. "Your barriers are... impressive, Doctor."

"I picked up a few tricks while I've been out and about; you'd be surprised what you can learn in the right times and places when you're dealing with the right people," the Doctor said, trying to appear nonchalant as he stared the other man down; a couple of minor possible clues about what he'd been up to in his future might be enough to make them relax their assault if they assumed that he was about to crack anyway.

It was a long shot, of course, but it was all he could do right now; his main goal had to be to buy time for his past self to get him out of this mess...

"Except a sense of duty, apparently," Romana said, shaking her head as she looked at her former mentor. "Doctor, you have always fought for Gallifrey in the past; why do you seek to defy us now-?"

"Do you think I _want _to defy Gallifrey, Romana?" the Doctor interjected, his eyes narrowing as he glared at her, briefly allowing some part of his eighth self from this time to slip through; it wasn't easy, but letting who he'd been at this point dictate his words right now would at least decrease the possibility that he'd reveal future information, given that he'd be focusing on how he felt about the situation without the benefit of hindsight. "Gallifrey's safety has _always _been one of my priorities, but that can also mean protecting it from _itself_-"

"By defying a Presidential order and depriving us of our potentially greatest weapon?" Romana asked, clearly sceptical at the Doctor's explanation. "How is _that _'protecting' us?"

"Sometimes protecting Gallifrey includes protecting it from itself," the Doctor repeated, grateful that he still believed in the motives of what he'd been trying to accomplish by keeping Compassion away even if his attempts had ended badly; it wasn't like there was anything her presence in Gallifrey's fleet during that assault around the Edifice could have done anyway. "I don't want the Enemy to win the war if they're as bad as what I've heard about them, but I don't feel that what you're trying to accomplish is worth the methods you're using to ensure it happens; it's not the same thing as _defying _you-!"

"It is _precisely _the same thing, Doctor," Romana said, shaking her head at him in a mockingly sympathetic manner, as though she couldn't believe that anyone could be as foolish as he was being at present. "You would refuse to do your duty for Gallifrey, and for that-"

"Oh yes, the same sad old line all over, isn't it?" the Doctor said, temper pushed to the edge as he glared at his old companion. "If I'm not with you I'm against you, and if I'm against you then I'm _automatically _a threat, regardless of how often I've helped you in the past?"

"I have to think of Time Lord society, Doctor-" Romana began.

"And what price is victory _worth_, Romana?" the Doctor said, glaring resolutely back at his old companion. "Where is the _point _in winning if you're going to destroy everything that was worth preserving about what you're trying to save in the first place? Honestly, the last time Gallifrey was in this kind of state it required two of me to sort it out-!"

"I am _nothing _like Niroc, Doctor; I am not doing this to cover up my own mistakes-" Romana began.

"No, you're just doing it to secure survival at the cost of _survival_," the Doctor said, glaring scornfully at his old companion. "Did you learn _nothing _from your time with me, Romana? What's the point in winning if you destroy everything worth preserving in the first place?"

"Ensuring that we're still around to restore what we might have lost afterwards," Romana said, folding her arms as she looked at the Doctor. "If you can help us learn how best to survive the coming war, Doctor-"

"I won't," the Doctor said resolutely.

Romana sighed.

"Then we'll just have to do this the hard way," she said sadly.

As the assault on his mind was renewed, the Doctor could only grit his teeth and pray that his younger self would reach him sooner rather than later...

* * *

AN 3: Short, but there wasn't much to cover here; the next few chapters are going to be more interesting as the past Doctors deal with the problems facing them...


	30. Capturing the Immortal's Brother

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Back to Cardiff, as the First and Third Doctors work with Torchwood to resolves Gray's attack on Captain Jack...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Are you sure about this?" Jo asked, looking apprehensively at her Doctor after the expanded Torchwood team had gathered back in the Hub, their respective problems relatively contained. The creatures she'd seen at the police station while with Gwen and Susan had certainly been disturbing, but Gwen had assured her that the 'Weevils' were nothing to be concerned about, and Ianto and Owen had informed Captain Harkness that they had managed to deal with their own problems at the hospital and the central server building, even if Ian Chesterton- and why did that name seem so familiar?- appeared to disapprove of whatever Owen had done judging by the stares he was giving the doctor.

"Not entirely, but we don't exactly have many alternatives available to us, Jo," the Doctor said, looking apologetically at his assistant. "Right now the vortex is too unstable for either of me to be certain that we can use the TARDIS to follow Captain Hart, Captain Harkness's vortex manipulator has been disabled beyond our current ability to reactivate it, and we simply cannot afford to leave someone capable of arranging attacks like these free to cause further havoc."

"Particularly not when he might be responsible for whatever has caused this turmoil in the Rift, mmm?" the older-looking Doctor said, glancing over at his future/younger-looking self with a slight smile.

"A long shot, to be sure, but it's the best we can do on such short notice," the Doctor said, glancing back at where the man who'd introduced himself as Captain John Hart was standing alongside Jack Harkness, his hand hovering impatiently over the strange strap around his wrist as he looked at the Time Lord. "If we can't solve the problem ourselves just yet, we can at least ensure that we've eliminated all of the obvious causes before we try and tackle this mess ourselves."

"Just... just give me a chance to... talk to him, OK?" Jack said, the older man looking at the group of people around him with an uncertain manner that somehow seemed strange to Jo even after spending only a few moments with the man.

Whether it was his apparent immortality and the implications she'd heard about his age, the fact that he had an official rank where everyone else in this 'Torchwood' organisation- she thought she recalled finding memos about that somewhere back at UNIT; she'd have to ask the Brigadier about that when she had the chance- just seemed to be trained civilians, or just something about the way he carried himself, Captain Harkness had come across as a man whose default state was confidence; the idea of him actually being apprehensive about something seemed wrong to everyone in this room, even those, like Jo, who had only just met him...

Then again, Jo supposed it was only natural to be shaken at the news that your family were responsible for this kind of attack.

She didn't have any siblings herself, but she had found a close, if somewhat strange, family in her friends back at UNIT, and the thought of any of them doing something like this- even if she was certain they would only do it if something truly _terrible _had happened to them- was not something she liked to think about.

In a sense, she had to admire Captain Harkness's resolve to face what they were about to do; even if John Hart's tale when the rest of the team came back made it clear that Captain Harkness's brother had gone mad after whatever had happened to him, it couldn't be easy to be preparing for a mission to stop your own brother, even if he was trying to destroy you.

"Let's just go before Gray figures out what I'm up to; live-action broadcast might've been severed, but longer we wait here the better the odds are that this rift thing'll screw up transport," Hart said, looking grimly between Captain Harkness and the Doctor as he indicated the device on his wrist.

As her Time Lord mentor and their mysterious new friend touched the device, Jo barely had time to blink before the Doctor, Captain Harkness and Hart had vanished in a flash of light, leaving the others to look apprehensively between each other as they waited for some sign that their trip had been successful (Looking at the old man that the Doctor had apparently been in the past, Jo wondered if he found it easier or harder to wait for the team to return given that his future self was on it).

* * *

As the Third Doctor glanced around at his surroundings, he was pleased to note that the old man's reprogramming seemed to have worked; Hart's manipulator had taken them back in time before moving them physically, so all he'd had to do was time the moment when he would release his grip on the manipulator so that he arrived a short distance away from the two Captains while still being in the same time period-

Then he saw a young man in a dirty grey jumpsuit of some kind stabbing Captain Harkness as he and Hart stood in the middle of a field, and shook off any thoughts of personal contemplation; this was a time for action first. Moving as quickly as he could, he hurried towards the other man as he began to kick Captain Harkness's now-dead body- most likely he was aware of his brother's condition (Something the Doctor would definitely appreciate learning the reason for; he wondered if he knew about it in the future) and was venting his anger-, the attacker so focused on his rage that he didn't even register the Doctor's presence until the Time Lord was right behind him. Even as the man who was presumably Gray was turning to look at him, a knife still in his hand, the Doctor had raised his own arm and pinched Gray on the neck, the other man falling to the ground almost instantly.

"Took your sodding time, didn't you?" Captain Hart said, looking critically at the Doctor. "I thought you were meant to be right behind us, and _don't _say you just wanted to be sure Gray was off-guard or something stupid like that!"

"Pure accident, I assure you, Captain Hart; I simply landed a few moments later than I intended to," the Doctor said, standing back to turn his attention back to the unconscious and temporarily-deceased forms of the two brothers lying in front of them. "Well, now that that's sorted, I recommend that we return to 2008 as quickly as possible; there's no point waiting around for longer than we have to, and while I'm not sure how long Captain Harkness takes to recover from death, I do know that Gray here won't be out for longer than a few more minutes."

"Right-o," Hart said, crouching down to take hold of Captain Harkness as the Doctor picked up Gray before placing a hand on Hart's shoulder.

The Doctor had to give the Time Agency credit- even if he was officially meant to disapprove of any society other than the Time Lords travelling in time, he could still admire what other people came up with so long as it didn't do anything dangerous to reality-; this method of travel might be uncomfortable, but it certainly got the job done.

In the end, the Doctor supposed that he should just be grateful that it had been so simple; with Gray taken care of and Captain Hart clearly uninterested in continuing his plan on his own, the immediate threat to Cardiff had been negated, and the city as a whole probably wouldn't have any idea what had happened to it.

The only question was what they would do when they got back to their time, given that the TARDISes would still be grounded by those rift distortions that had drawn them to the city in the first place...

* * *

As he stood over his brother's still body, lying on the operating table, dosed with chloroform to keep him comatose, Jack could only sigh at the sight.

So much potential chaos had only been narrowly averted because the Doctors had been present to help them... and all of it caused because he hadn't been able to keep a hold of his brother's hand, that long ago day in the Boeshane Peninsula.

They'd disarmed all of the bombs and traps that Gray had planted in the city, of course- with John's help it really hadn't been that hard to find them all-, and they were already working on administering retcon to most of the police who'd seen the Weevils in the station (Although Gwen had insisted that Andy retain his memories of what had happened), but the thought of what could have happened...

If _someone _hadn't died while Gray was trying to get revenge on Jack for a mistake he'd made centuries ago, Jack would have considered it nothing short of a miracle.

"I spent my whole life looking for him," he said, looking grimly up at the rest of the currently-expanded Torchwood team as they stood around him; his shirt was still bloody from where Gray had stabbed him, but this wasn't the time to think about clothing when he was facing his brother for the first time in over a century. "Now I have to lose him all over again."

"Are you sure about this?" Leela asked, looking uncertainly at the still form in front of them. "He is dangerous-"

"He's my brother," Jack said simply. "I have to do this."

"But... keeping him frozen?" Ian asked, looking slightly uncertainly at the captain. "Isn't that a bit... extreme?"

"It's the best we can do for him right now," Jack said grimly; he understood what the other man meant, but he didn't have the resources to be sure of keeping Gray contained right now if he left him conscious, so this was the best bet. "We don't have the resources or therapy system to help Gray cope with what happened to him; all we can do is keep him frozen until we can provide those for him."

"A... commendable attitude, anyway, Captain Harkness," the Doctor in velvet said, smiling slightly at him.

"Learned it from the best," Jack said, grinning briefly at the past version of his future friend, before he sighed and stood back, looking over at his friends with a grim expression. "Come on; we've got to get him away, and then we've got to see what's up with the Rift."

"Thing's still acting up?" Hart said, looking at his former partner in surprise. "Thought that was just Gray-"

"Mr Gray was certainly a skilled individual with interesting connections, but opening this 'Rift' of yours in such a manner as would allow people through is _not _the same as causing the kind of distortions that we are presently detecting," the older-looking Doctor- who, Jack had to remind himself, was actually the _youngest _Doctor; regeneration was an interesting concept, but that bit alone was slightly confusing at times- said, looking grimly over at Jack's ex-partner.

"I don't suppose we're lucky enough to have this particular mess be your fault?" Gwen asked, looking scathingly over at John.

"Wouldn't go this far even if I knew how to; makes it all too complicated when you're bringing in too many other things at a time like this," John said, shrugging slightly as he indicated his wrist-strap. "Besides, in case you haven't noticed, I'm as stuck here as the rest of you; why would I go to all the trouble of starting something I can't get through myself?"

"It's that bad?" Susan asked, looking at her grandfather (God, the Doctor had been a _grandfather_; no _wonder _he had so much trouble talking about Gallifrey if he'd had to kill his own _children _when he ended the Time War...).

"The Rift is certainly highly unstable even for something like this, my dear," the old Doctor said, nodding grimly at her. "Based on my analysis and Miss Sato's old notes, it would appear that the Rift is presently in a state where things could travel through it to us, but the distortions are too great for anyone to travel in the opposite direction; until the source is eliminated, we all remain essentially 'grounded'."

"Unless, of course, we can modify that Rift manipulator of yours to generate a counter-frequency that we can use to stabilise the Rift long enough for us to determine the source of this disturbance and travel to it accordingly," the Doctor in velvet added, smiling briefly at his past self.

"You can do that?" Owen said, looking at the Time Lord in surprise. "You- the you we've met- never said you could do _that_-"

"Probably because I wouldn't have had a need to do something like that before now; control of a space-time rift like this one isn't something that should be done lightly, Doctor Harper," the velvet-clad Doctor said, looking pointedly at the doctor for a moment before he sighed and turned his attention back to the original topic. "However, desperate times call for desperate measures; your technology is good, but we're going to need to make some changes, very quickly, if we're going to sort out what's causing this trouble before it becomes noticeable on this level of existence."

As the Doctors and Tosh began to discuss what would need to be done, Jack could only look at his teammates and fellow companions while Ianto and Owen prepared to help him take Gray to the stasis chambers, and hope that whatever they were about to do to the Rift manipulator would be enough to discover what was happening here.

Even without the potential hazards of the Rift acting up, they _definitely _needed to get these younger Doctors away from Cardiff and back to their own places in time as soon as possible; the longer they stayed here with him and Leela, the greater the risk that one of them would say something about the Doctor's future that they shouldn't know (He vaguely recalled the Doctor telling him once that the TARDIS would erase his memories if he discovered something about his future that he shouldn't remember, but that didn't mean Jack couldn't be cautious anyway)...

* * *

AN 2: Not the longest chapter, I know, but that's the way things go sometimes; I'm hoping that the next couple of chapters will be a BIT longer, as we return to Zeta Minor and the Doctors currently on that planet...


	31. The Flood of the Segment

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: As promised, this chapter returns to Zeta Minor, as the Fifth Doctor and Claire Aldwych face Magnus Greel himself; the others will be appearing soon (Hope you like it; sometimes, working out how to get people out of these situations isn't easy, but I felt that Claire had potential for a few interesting skills that could be useful in this situation, and I feel that the Doctors' plan certainly worked)

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Staring grimly at the masked man before him, the Fifth Doctor found himself keenly regretting the fact that he'd regenerated since he last met this man; he could definitely use his past self's greater control and confidence at this point (He could be assertive when the situation called for it, but he'd been a lot better at it in his last body; he just didn't have the physical presence to really intimidate anyone right now).

"So, _Doctor_," Greel said, sounding far too amused for the Fifth Doctor's liking as he studied the now-captive Time Lord, the Fifth Doctor and Claire tied to chairs in front of the masked man with their hands trapped behind them and their legs bound to the chair legs with ropes, a couple of Daleks on either side of the chairs to discourage thoughts of escape, "you have come to try and stop my new partners and I from perfecting my experiments?"

"You know who I am?" the Fifth Doctor asked, looking at him in surprise; Greel had never been stupid, but he had clearly assumed during their last encounter that the Doctor was just a Time Agent rather than assuming that he could be something other than human.

"We have been kept informed on your activities by our sponsor since this experiment began; do you _truly _think that you can outsmart us simply because you do not possess the same body as you did back when I last faced you?" Greel said, looking scathingly at the other man behind his mask.

"Hold on; you're working _for _someone?" the Fifth Doctor said, confusion replacing surprise even as he tried to keep the worst of his reaction under control; right now, all that he could do was maintain the appearance of control if he was going to convince Greel to tell him anything useful. "How did that happen?"

"Yeah, you don't really strike me as the 'lackey' type," Claire said, looking Greel over with a sarcastic grin. "What happened to change that; you decide that coming up with your own ideas was too much-?"

"_Silence_!" Greel said, striking Claire on the face and leaving a series of thin scratches with his long fingernails.

"Leave her alone!" the Fifth Doctor yelled, looking urgently at Greel as he drew back his hand to strike Claire again. For a moment, Greel simply stood in silence, and then he lowered his hand, chuckling as he looked back at the Doctor.

"You have a certain... strength about you, even now, Doctor," he said, chuckling at the Time Lord. "That is... gratifying... to know that I still have an interesting opponent, rather than the primitives I once allied with-"

"Right now, the only thing that interests me is learning what brought you back," the Fifth Doctor said, staring grimly back at the 'Butcher of Brisbane'; he wasn't actually going to say that Greel had been dead- it would be best to determine what Greel remembered of that time for later-, but he still needed to know how Greel could be here after falling victim to his own catalytic extraction chamber. "The last time I saw you... well, you weren't really in a condition that would allow you to do anything."

"Let us simply say that I was... given a new opportunity by a unique individual," Greel said, chuckling in an almost contemplative manner as he looked at the Doctor. "I believe you know of him; he claimed to be known in the legends of your people as the leader of the 'Pantheon of Dischord'?"

The Fifth Doctor's eyes widened.

"The _Trickster_?" he said incredulously.

"The who?" Claire asked, looking questioningly over at her new friend; even for a story that had started out involving an apparent Nazi conspiracy and imps that could only be seen on camera, things were _really _starting to get far more complicated than she could have ever imagined.

"He must be the 'Dark One' that was mentioned in the TARDIS databank," the Fifth Doctor explained, looking back at the journalist. "According to the legends of the Pantheon, he and his kind create chaos by causing changes to history, commonly involving making deals with others to save their lives at the cost of some other trade-off, such as someone dying in their place or something like that..."

"Pre_cisely_," Greel said, chuckling as he looked at the Fifth Doctor. "Not only did the 'Trickster', as you call him, save my life, he even proceeded to provide me with the means to travel here-"

"You mean that TARDIS?" Claire asked, looking critically at him as she jerked her head in the direction of the building that they'd visited earlier. "No offence, but I'm a total novice at this and even I can see that, compared to the Doctor's, that thing's falling apart-"

"It is _more _than enough for my purposes, fool," Greel said, chuckling as he looked at the two of them. "All we required of that ship was to lead us here; now that we are on this planet, with its abundant natural power-"

"A power that _nobody _can control, Greel!" the Fifth Doctor yelled, staring in exasperation at his old enemy. "Didn't what happened with the zygma experiments teach you _anything_?"

"I could have perfected the process with time, Doctor-!" Greel began.

"Everyone in your time abandoned those experiments after your disappearance; doesn't that teach you _anything _about how they were regarded?" the Fifth Doctor countered, staring resolutely back at his enemy. "You're a genius, Magnus Greel, but you're a genius who's dedicated his life to flawed research; you're never going to get anywhere if you keep on working on projects that were abandoned for a reason!"

"They were abandoned because no other had my genius, Doctor!" Greel said, pointing a long-nailed hand threateningly at the Time Lord. "But once we have harnessed the powers of this world for our own-!"

"OK, you know what?" Claire said, staring grimly at Greel. "I've had it up to _here _with being threatened by egomaniacial prats like this!"

Before the Fifth Doctor could do anything, Claire was standing up- although her legs were still tied to the chair- and had punched Greel in the face, following the manoeuvre up by swinging the rope that had once been tied around her arms around the eyestalk of the nearest Dalek as the two massive 'pepperpots' moved forward to better aim their weapons at the prisoners. The Dalek had only just started yelling in protest at her treatment of it before Claire yanked the Dalek towards the other Dalek in the room, a force field flaring up around the two Daleks as they collided before both fields suddenly collapsed in a burst of energy that forced the Fifth Doctor to shut his eyes before it caused any damage to his retinas, opening his eyes as the light faded to reveal that the two Daleks had apparently destroyed each other in a simultaneous explosion.

"Well," Claire said, smiling even as she shook slightly- evidently that was the first time that she'd ever had to do something like that, even if she'd clearly accepted that it had to be done- while turning to look at the Time Lord, "that was... interesting."

"How-?" the Fifth Doctor began.

"Little trick I picked up in my spare time over the years; basic escapology thing about keeping yourself tensed when you're being tied up so that you've got room to manoeuvre later," Claire explained with a slight shrug. "I figured they'd be less likely to pay attention to me than they would to you, given everything the... the _other _yous... said about your reputation with these guys, so I kept myself tensed up when I was being tied up and worked on the ropes while you were talking to Greel."

"Ah," the Fifth Doctor said, smiling in understanding as he nodded in approval her. "Good work; I would have tried something similar myself, but... well, I'm not as physically skilled in this body as I have been in others."

"You lose skills when you... change?" Claire said, looking at him in surprise, before she shook her head slightly as she walked over to start untying him. "Well, that sucks."

"It's the problem with regenerating- how I transform from one appearance to another- to save my life; you don't have time to pick what skills you keep and which you lose," the Fifth Doctor explained with a slightly sheepish shrug as Claire set to work untying his bonds. "It's sometimes just little things like making soufflés- I used to be rather good at it, but they always go flat these days-, but it can be more difficult when dealing with larger issues; the me I was before I was the one in the scarf had a knack for technology that I've never quite been able to master since."

"Ah," Claire said, nodding with the same nod that the Fifth Doctor had come to recognise when people didn't know how to react to what he was saying before she turned her attention back to the ropes. "So, what now?"

"Well, if you'll just give me a moment..." the Fifth Doctor said, closing his eyes and reaching out to find his other two selves.

_Hello_? he said, hoping that his previous and next selves weren't too far away from his current location. _Are you there_?

_Hello, Doctor_, a pair of voices said in the Fifth Doctor's subconscious, the Fifth Doctor barely needing any time to identify the 'speakers' as his past and future selves. _Is everything under control_?

_Greel's unconscious, two Daleks have been destroyed, and Claire and I are free_, the Fifth Doctor replied, smiling slightly at the thought; Mavic Chen might still be unaccounted for, but the obvious threats had still been dealt with. _How are you_?

_All's well here, thanks_, the other two Doctors replied almost simultaneously. _You might want to find some kind of higher ground soon; we're about to stage a rescue, and things are going get... well, 'loud' is probably a simple way of describing it_.

The Fifth Doctor almost asked what they meant by 'higher ground', but the brief mental flash he received of their plan from his next self was all he needed to establish that it would be a very good idea to obey his other self's order as quickly as possible, as well as clarify that they weren't asking anything too elaborate of him anyway.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Claire's hand and heading for the door. "We need to get to the roof; I'm about to do something potentially dangerous and it would be best if we were somewhere secure."

He couldn't entirely believe what his past and future self had come up with- he certainly wouldn't have conceived of something this risky-, but he supposed that was what made them their versions of him; a bit more confidence in a crisis (It was one of his major frustrations about this body; he had the knowledge, but his youth made him more reluctant to really assert himself).

* * *

"You're sure about this?" Donna asked, looking sceptically at the Doctor in the bad coat as the two of them and Amy stood on a small outcropping they'd found on the cliff a short distance away from the main Dalek camp. "Isn't it a bit-?"

"Considering what the Daleks are attempting to accomplish, Miss Noble, I assure you that it is _not_," the Doctor in the terrible coat said, looking resolutely back at her as Amy pulled a strange crystal-like thing out of her satchel. "We're pressed for time right now and the stakes are far higher than you can image; we _cannot _allow the Daleks to retain control of this facility any longer than we have to."

"And you're also sure that I can do this?" Amy asked, looking uncertainly at the fair-haired Doctor. "I did it with the castle, but that was when I was trying to save you; this-"

"Your sister will do it in your future; I have faith that you can do it now," the Doctor said, a warm, reassuring expression on his face that was somehow a significant contrast to his previous attitude while not appearing out of place at the same time. "Just focus on what this segment was, and be sure to remain in touch with at least a part of it; there should be enough indentations in the ground between here and the main pit to ensure that it doesn't all go down there, but best to make sure."

"Talking of being sure, you sure the guy in the scarf can do his bit?" Donna asked, jerking her head upwards at the other Doctor's destination; he, Romana and K9 had already returned to their TARDIS while the Brigadier waited in the TARDIS he'd arrived in, recognising that he wasn't in the right kind of shape for any last-minute escapes that might be needed in this situation. "No offence, but you're not always good at getting the target right when _I'm_ with you, and from what you said he's the youngest one here-"

"Who nevertheless has an excellent grasp of how to manage short hops at this point in his life; trust him, I _can _do that at that point in my life," the Doctor said, smiling reassuringly but firmly at Donna before he raised his head and closed his eyes for a moment, smiling as he turned back to look at Amy. "I'm in position; revert the segment."

Nodding in understanding despite the slight fear in her eyes, Amy pulled a small piece of crystal out of her satchel- Donna still wasn't entirely clear on what this whole plan actually involved; she'd heard a bit of stuff about secret weapons and segments, but she got the impression that this Doctor was trying to prevent the other one from finding out about something big that he was going to do later and hadn't shared much with him before they'd split up- and held it over the edge of the cliff, just slightly below their current position, before she closed her eyes and focused on something.

If Donna hadn't seen it, she wouldn't have believed it; that single bit of oddly-shaped crystal suddenly turned into a massive amount of water that seemed to spread from Amy's hand to completely envelop the valley area before them, sweeping through the cliffs in front of them until it struck the Dalek camp a short distance away. Donna only just had time to register the forms of the cricket-wearing Doctor and Claire Aldwych on top of one of the buildings before the water struck, the force of it sweeping the various Daleks gathered around the camp away, force-fields crackling around them as the water disrupted their defensive systems and sent them hurtling towards the large hole in the centre of their camp. For a moment she worried about the younger Doctor and Claire, but a quick glance confirmed that the buildings were all still relatively stable; evidently the Daleks didn't take any chances when building their bases, even if the doors themselves were breaking down from the water pressure they were being subjected to right now...

"NOW!" the Doctor in the bad coat yelled, prompting Amy to reach down and close her eyes in concentration as she made contact with the water swirling below them once again. In a matter of moments, the water that had formerly been filling the camp had been seemingly sucked back into the palm of Amy's hand, leaving only the same small crystal that Donna had seen earlier.

"What the-?" Donna began, looking incredulously between the small rock in the younger girl's hand and the now-desolated 'camp' that the Daleks had established; apart from the cricket-wearing Doctor and Claire- who were already getting down from the roof where they'd been hiding-, all other life in the camp seemed to have been destroyed, with Dalek shell casings scattered all over the place leading towards the central pit.

"This is a segment of the Key to Time, a powerful object that can alter the states of quanta and matter in the universe," Amy explained, holding out the small piece of crystal so that Donna could see it better. "This piece was originally disguised as the Lake of Eratoom; when I reverted it to its natural state, the water swept the Daleks into the pit, or at the very least short-circuited most of their systems."

"They're not waterproof?" Donna said, unable to stop a slight chuckle at the thought.

"They're waterproof against conventional forms of water that they would expect to encounter, anyway; being equipped to cope with rain isn't the same as being expected to cope with a torrent of water like this," the Doctor commented. "Skaro didn't have much water on it by the time the Daleks were created, and they've never felt the need to adapt themselves for an aquatic environment so it creates a significant potential weakness, even if it's hard to exploit."

"OK, so that's the Daleks accounted for; what about those other two?" Donna asked.

"Dead," another voice said, causing Donna to look around as the cricket-wearing Doctor and Claire clambered up to join them, the older Doctor lending a hand to his younger self to haul him up onto their outcrop. "Greel was in the building where Claire and I were being held, and the water threw him into the wall when it struck- in his current physical condition, he was unable to cope with that kind of punishment- and I'm not sure where Chen was, but I have a feeling it's not going to matter soon."

"Huh?" Donna asked, puzzled at the way the Doctor phrased that statement- she could understand him not being that concerned about enemies of his who, from everything he'd said, should be dead already, but that didn't explain why he was so confident about their imminent deaths-, but then she looked up and noticed something that she hadn't registered earlier, flaming brightly in the sky and getting larger all the time. "Hold on; what's a _meteor_ doing coming down now?"

"That's not a meteor; that's the Dalek station where they're storing the anti-matter they've collected so far," the Doctor in the cricket jumper said, looking at her with a slightly grim smile.

"_What_?" Donna said, looking up at the flaming object in shock (Now that she squinted, it _did _look a bit too perfectly-shaped to be a random bit of space junk...). "I thought the third you was just going to set it to blow up-!"

"Which would have defeated the Daleks' plans but failed to guarantee the return of the anti-matter to the planet; this way is more... explosive... but it gets the job done," the Doctor with the celery said with a slight smile before he became more serious. "Now then, if we could just get back to the TARDIS before that reaches us, we should probably be on our way."

"Quite so," the later Doctor said, nodding at his past self. "I assume I'll see you there?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied. "I'm not going to leave a loose end like _that _hanging."

"What-?" Donna began, before the Doctors turned around and began to hurry back into the forest towards their ships, leaving her to exchange a brief glance with Amy before hurrying after the Doctor she'd arrived here with, the two women reaching their TARDIS as the cricketing Doctor was already beginning to set the controls.

"What's going on here, sunshine?" Donna asked, glaring in frustration at the Doctor as the central column started to move in the usual in-flight manner. "In case you'd forgotten, we still don't know _what _any of those sods were doing on that planet-!"

"Actually, we do have some ideas," the Doctor clarified, looking at her with a slight smile that put Donna so in mind of her Doctor that she could almost forget about the new face and imaging that it was _him _standing in front of her rather than this stranger.

"You do?" Amy asked. "Who?"

"Well, _what _they're after is still in question, but it would appear that Greel and Chen were resurrected by an individual known as the Trickster, who represents higher powers of chaos known as the Pantheon of Discord," the Doctor explained, his expression becoming grimmer as he looked between the other TARDIS travellers, showing a variation of the same resolute expression that Donna recognised all too well from her own Doctor when he had made a decision and refused to be swayed by others. "My previous self has just informed me and me that the ship's databanks included a date and place that the anti-matter was to be transported to when it had all been collected; given that we've dealt with the situation at this end of things, it only makes sense that we should find out what they intended to do with that anti-matter to ensure that they can't just try this again later, and hopefully work out the answers to some of the _other _questions left by this mess."

"Ah," Donna said, nodding in understanding even as she had to wonder what else the Doctor had discovered that he wasn't telling them about; something about his attitude reminded her of her Doctor's attitude when faced with something he didn't want to discuss yet, but with this not being her Doctor and no Martha in sight anyway she doubted that it was going to be _that _easy to get him to talk about whatever it was...

"So..." she asked, trying to focus on the questions the Doctor probably would answer rather than ask about the ones he wouldn't- she had little doubt that that other TARDIS they'd found down there was responsible for at least some of this mess, but she also knew that getting a Doctor to talk about something like _that _before they were ready couldn't be done in this situation-, "where're we going?"

"Cardiff, at some point in the early twenty-first century," the Doctor said, turning back to the controls as he began to work. "Just let me enter the last few coordinates, and the TARDIS should be able to sort out the rest..."

Donna just hoped that her shock at this news wasn't as obvious to her current companions as it felt like it had been to her.

Whatever the Daleks were up to was taking place in _Cardiff_?

Donna might not have met the mysterious 'Captain Jack', but she'd heard enough about him from the Doctor and Martha to know where he lived and what he did; if whatever the Daleks were up to didn't involve that 'rift' she'd heard so much about, she'd be _very _surprised...

She just hoped that her Doctor would show up soon; working out what she should or shouldn't tell these Doctors about Jack and his future was going to be far more complicated than she felt prepared to deal with on her own right now...

* * *

AN 2: I apologise for the lack of the Fourth Doctor in this chapter, but that's just the way things worked out; I'll try and include him more later on.

AN 3: Back to Martha and the "Father's Day" crisis next chapter, which should hopefully include some interesting speculation about family ties before the Doctors have to return to the main crisis at hand...


	32. Looping the Earth

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A conclusion- of sorts- to "Father's Day", along with the emergence of some other interesting issues (Thanks to the reviewers who suggested one of the minor ideas used here, BTW); it's basic, but I hope you like it

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As Martha sat anxiously in the back of the church, watching as the three younger Doctors worked away inside the new door that had appeared in the corner of the church- apparently this new TARDIS had a working chameleon circuit with the addition of a perception filter; looking around, she was fairly sure that only she and her fellow companions knew that the door hadn't always been there-, she wished that they had just finished what they were doing; she was _really _getting frustrated with this whole situation.

Not only did she want to get back to her Doctor- the Doctor who knew her, anyway; she was fully aware that she didn't _own _him-, but she wanted to know that she could leave this situation in the knowledge that they could know that everything would be back to normal afterwards; as horrible and tragic as these events were, she couldn't predict how Rose having her father around would affect the Doctor's history based on his interaction with her...

"You... you're from the future?" a voice said from beside her.

Glancing in the direction of the voice, Martha tried not to show too much shock at the sight of Rose Tyler sitting beside her; a quick glance around confirmed that the Doctors were still in the TARDIS while Klein and Serena were off in different corners of the church, Serana awkwardly talking with a couple of guests while Klein simply glared at the TARDIS's door as she sat off in a corner, clearly disliking the thought of talking with the others in the church but unable to do anything else with her time.

The fact that she had to deal with this woman after her own first meeting featured Rose shooting Jack in the head in the belief that he'd stay dead was currently tying for first place in Martha's 'Frustrating Moments' and 'Awkward Moments' lists; time travel could b so confusing when it came to interacting with others on some occasions (Particularly when you met someone_ before _they committed crimes you knew they'd commit in the future). Knowing why you shouldn't change history didn't mean that you found it easy to resist the temptation to do so; the thought that she might be able to spare some people some pain by convincing Rose to get over her future issues now was so frustratingly tempting...

"_His _future, I mean," Rose said, indicating the Doctor in the leather jacket. "You... you start travelling with him after I..."

"You left, and I travelled with him after you left," Martha finished, nodding briefly at Rose; she might dislike what the woman had become in the future, but this wasn't the time to focus on future sins.

"How-?" Rose began.

"I can't tell you," Martha said, shaking her head resolutely before Rose could finish that sentence; she knew where the other girl was going, and with the Doctor's history already complicated by whatever issues were involved in having three of him in one place, this wasn't the time to discuss that kind of thing.

"But-?" Rose tried to protest.

"Rose, hasn't this whole thing taught you about why I _can't _change history?" Martha asked, indicating the church around them in frustration as she glared at the younger woman; even if Rose couldn't be held responsible for future events, this was at least one topic where she could be realistically expected to get angry at the other woman. "Even if I knew with absolute certainty that I could tell you how you left and know that you wouldn't change it, just knowing what's coming up could affect how you react to everything; there's more at stake here than just what happens to _you_, all right?"

"But... look, I'm just-" Rose said.

"_Don't_," Martha said, looking firmly at Rose, hoping that her tone would make it clear that she wasn't interested in this argument being continued.

She hated to be so abrupt, but she just couldn't take the chance that anything she said to Rose could result on Rose finding some way to avoid her future fate of being separated from the Doctor during the Battle of Canary Wharf.

Maybe things would be better for the Doctor in some areas- Martha wasn't going to be self-centred and assume that she was 'better' for him than Rose; the last time she'd met Rose the woman had been at least slightly insane, so it wasn't fare to judge her based on that, and there was no way to know how she'd have coped with some of the things Martha had experienced travelling with the Doctor-, but that didn't mean that she or Rose had the right to try and make a change like that; history had worked out fairly well as it had unfolded originally, and this wasn't the time to start presuming that they had the right to make bigger changes.

"Well..." Rose said, after a few moments of awkward silence as the two young women sat alongside each other out of a lack of anything else to do, "if you can't answer that, can you tell me why that woman looks a bit like old photos of my Gran?"

Martha's eyes widened incredulously as she took in who Rose was indicating.

_Klein_...

Elizabeth Klein looked like Rose Tyler's _grandmother_?

How could that be possible? The Doctors might not have shared much about Klein, but it seemed fairly obvious to Martha that the Seventh Doctor would have to erase Klein from existence to undo the damage she'd caused trying to restore 'her' history into existence; how could she be Rose's grandmother if she'd never exist-

_But only _that _version of her would cease to exist_.

That sudden thought provided Martha with the unexpected recollection of a show that could provide her with the answer she needed.

Even if he was an alien himself, the Doctor had shown a remarkable appreciation for science-fiction- he claimed that he enjoyed seeing occasions where humanity managed to get things right or wrong; she still smiled when she recalled his enthusiasm for the concept of human/alien cross-breeds in _Star Trek_, and he'd greatly appreciated the amount of thought that had been put into creating alien cultures in the _Animorphs _novel series-, and they'd spent some of their spare time in the TARDIS watching movies and TV shows when attempts to leave the ship for their 'dates' had almost invariably turned against them. In one episode of that _Red Dwarf _comedy series- 'The Inquisitor', she thought it had been called-, the title character had dedicated himself to erasing people from existence if they were judged to have wasted their lives, replacing them with other versions of themselves created by different sperm fertilising the eggs at the moment of conception or something like that...

That exact example probably didn't apply here, but the principle was probably the same; even if the Klein who had caused all that damage was erased from existence, wasn't it possible that _another _version of her could exist instead? A Klein who hadn't lived in a world where the Nazis won, a Klein who was willing to accept that there was another way to live in the world than that dictated by Adolf Hitler, a Klein who would actually marry someone...

A Klein who would be Rose Tyler's grandmother?

The odds were probably against it- the Doctor might have lived for several centuries, but she'd learnt enough about his past to know that he didn't ask just anyone to travel with him-, but there was only so many people even in the universe; given how much the Doctor travelled, wasn't it possible that he could meet someone who was coincidentally connected to an old companion without knowing about the connection?

It was a fascinating idea in theory, but Martha wasn't sure how to bring it up; this didn't exactly seem the time to explain Klein's history to Rose, she didn't feel entirely comfortable telling the Ninth Doctor about her theory after the way the other Doctors had referred to him during her 'mental chat' with them after the Japan Massacre, the Second and Seventh wouldn't know enough about Rose to contribute anything to the discussion- and the Second would know less about Klein- and she somehow doubted that Klein would be happy to learn about what else her other self would achieve that she wouldn't-

"We've got it!" the Second Doctor's voice suddenly yelled from the door, hurrying out to look at the four companions with a broad smile.

"And... 'it' is?" Martha asked, looking curiously at the small Doctor as Serena and Klein hurried over to join her and Rose (She'd think about the implications of her recent Klein-related theory when she had the time).

"A solution to the current temporal fractures!" the Second Doctor said, smiling over at her. "The other two mes are finalising the programming details; I just thought I'd let you all know what's happening so that you can prepare to leave as soon as possible-"

"_Leave_?" Rose interjected, looking at the Doctor in shock. "We can't leave; my Dad-"

"Will be fine until the situation's resolved once we put our plan into action, I assure you," the Second Doctor said, looking firmly over at her with a resolve that belied the attitude of the Doctor who future Doctors regarded as the personification of his own sense of humour. "All we need to do is set this TARDIS to take a short hop up into the exosphere, and we're sorted."

"The exosphere?" Klein said, looking at the youngest Doctor in surprise. "Why do you need to place it there?"

"Oh, we're going to set the chameleon circuit to turn it into a few clouds so that it can envelop the planet and set it all in temporal orbit," the Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at the Nazi scientist before he looked over at the others. "Of course, we can't guarantee how that will affect the Reapers, but since none of us are directly affected by the temporal scar Miss Tyler's created yet- her memories of this time of her life haven't changed, so the changes haven't 'caught up' to her present yet-, they should ignore us-"

"We're ready here!" the Seventh Doctor said, sticking his head out of the door to look at his other self.

"Hold on a minute; you're going to send _Earth _into a temporal orbit?" Serena said, looking incredulously at the Doctors as the Ninth Doctor walked out to join the other two. "That's-"

"I've already done a variation of it on another version of Earth, Serena; add in the fact that this TARDIS is more advanced than the one I was using then, coupled with the fact that the working chameleon circuit gives me some additional options, and it should all be fine," the Seventh Doctor said, smiling reassuringly over at the Time Lady before he looked back at his future self, a grimmer expression on his face. "Just to confirm, you're _sure _that this one is what we need?"

"I'm not happy about spending any more time in that Type 70 than you are, but we've not got much choice," the Ninth Doctor said, looking grimly over at the Seventh. "There's a few extra security protocols here that we're going to need to ensure that we don't experience the seismic tremors you experienced when you tried something like this, and since we don't know how long it's going to take to dealing with things at the other end of this mess, probably best we take all precautions."

"...Fair point," the Seventh Doctor said after a moment's pause, shaking his head in frustration before he sighed and looked between his past and future selves. "Well, if everything's set up, shall we?"

In response, the Ninth Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door and activated it, reaching out to grab Rose by the shoulder as Serena and the Seventh Doctor took hold of Klein and Martha's wrists. For a moment after the other TARDIS had vanished Martha didn't notice anything different about the world around them, but then there was a strange thickening sensation, as though she'd suddenly found herself underwater without actually getting wet, and everyone around them seemed to stop what they were doing.

"What the-?" Rose asked, looking at their surroundings in confusion.

"The TARDIS has just dispersed itself across Earth's upper atmosphere by turning into a cloud in the exosphere," the Second Doctor said, smiling over at her as he led the other Time Lords and their human companions towards the door. "It's a complicated system, but it should keep everything here safe until we get back; the Reapers might exist outside of Time themselves, but once they enter it they're still vulnerable to its laws to a certain degree."

"Enough to keep them away from anyone they might attack, anyway," the Ninth Doctor said, as he grimly took in their surroundings for a moment before he sighed and looked over at his seventh incarnation. "Well, let's be off; we've got to find the source of those explosions before things get any worse..."

"Uh... you mentioned that you had a theory about what this was?" Rose asked, looking uncertainly at 'her' Doctor as they left the church, following the Seventh Doctor as he led the way back to the TARDIS that Martha had arrived in this time period in. "What was it?"

"Some misguided twit who thought that he was protecting time by arranging to set off a dark matter explosion at Event One," the Ninth Doctor said, holding up one hand to halt the protests of his other two incarnations. "He didn't pull it off- I managed to divert the original bomb-, but the resulting explosion disrupted the usual barriers between alternate realities until I managed to undo the effects of the blast; evidently someone's worked out a way to repeat that experiment without most of the obvious original side-effects."

"Things were _worse _than this back when the original explosion was set off?" the Second Doctor asked, looking at his future self in shock.

"At its worst, it reached a point where I couldn't travel anywhere because the second I left the TARDIS multiple versions of me would come into existence depending on what I did; it got _very _confusing towards the end there..." the Ninth Doctor said, shaking his head in brief frustration at the memory before he turned his attention back to the present. "Anyway, so long as we can track down the source of these bombs- shouldn't be too hard; dark matter's not exactly something you can cloak that easily-, it should be simple enough."

"Couldn't it be the same person-?" Serena asked.

"Sabbath got trapped in the vortex when I last saw him because he was trying to save me; man might have been an idiot at times, but he had a strong enough will to ensure that nobody'd be able to make him do anything like that again," the Ninth Doctor said, before sighing as another thought occurred to him. "Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that someone could have found him and made him tell them what to do; Sabbath couldn't stand up to telepathic probing for long given his lack of training..."

"Let's just find out where these things came from before we start worrying about who _might _be responsible, could we?" Martha said, looking sharply over at the Ninth Doctor. "Things are bad enough without worrying about things that _might _be responsible for this mess; let's just find out who is and stop them before we worry about other details."

It wasn't the most detailed plan, but they knew too little to come up with anything more specific...

* * *

AN 2: Well, that's that; time is frozen for the rest of the world on the day that Pete Tyler died, and will remain so until the Second Doctor recovers his TARDIS- at which point 'Father's Day' will resume as though the other two Doctors were never there-, giving the Second, Seventh and Ninth Doctors the time they need to investigate what's causing the reality fractures and meet up with their allies in the upcoming showdown...


	33. Rescuing the Future

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Back to the Eighth Doctor as he rescues the Tenth Doctor from his captors, leading into...

Well, you'll see next chapter.

AN 2: When they're together, the Tenth Doctor is 'the Doctor' while the Eighth Doctor will be referred to as such; just wanted to be sure you knew

AN 3: A minor reference to my story 'Cruelty to TARDISes' regarding why Compassion's quiet when materialising later on in this story; in a nutshell, I assume that the noise the TARDIS makes when materialising helps it adapt to going from the vortex to the real world in the same way that we gradually enter cold water to help us adapt to the shift in temperature, materialisation without the noise being quieter but more uncomfortable for the TARDIS in question

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As he walked through the corridors towards the source of the power that Compassion had detected, the Doctor fought to keep his psychic barriers raised; he'd become so used to dealing with his people from a distance that he'd forgotten how much effort it could be to stay hidden in a society where you were always at least peripherally aware of where everyone else was.

Honestly, he just hoped that whatever his future self had come to warn him about was the reason that the Time Lords had been able to track him down like that; it was hard enough trying to keep Compassion away from the Time Lords without worrying about the possible need to add _more _components to her console. His old TARDIS had adjusted to the new controls eventually, but she'd still been relatively distant from him in those first few decades of travelling- he hadn't even acknowledged that she was _alive _back then, for Rassilon's sake!-; given that part of his control of Compassion depended on his ability to maintain a good relationship with her as a person, he didn't want to have to risk 'disassociating' himself from Compassion any more than he had to.

That was the problem with piloting around in a completely new TARDIS, really; unlike Magnus, he'd never specialised in TARDIS manufacture back at the Academy- everything he'd learned about his ship had been hands-on and based on a trial-and-error system-, so he had no way of knowing exactly what features of a TARDIS allowed Gallifrey to track them normally, making it hard to be sure if there was something in Compassion he should have disabled already...

Still, he couldn't complain; piloting difficulties aside, Compassion was at least a lot easier to keep track of than his old TARDIS most of the time, he certainly enjoyed having the ability to talk to his ship- even if a part of him still wished that he could have shared this kind of conversation with the ship he'd spent so much time in-, and, judging by his future self's ability to access Compassion in this time, their control must have significantly improved in the intervening centuries between him and the other Doctor for him to be able to accomplish something like that.

It was nice to consider that he and Compassion would get closer in future, but that didn't change the part of him that would always mourn his own ship; the alternate version he'd travelled in for a time had been similar enough that he could almost convince himself he hadn't changed ships at all, but Compassion was far too different for him to even try and fool himself that that was the case...

As he walked into the area that strongly appeared to be the main control room of this facility, thoughts of the future and the past were pushed aside in favour of the immediate crisis facing them, the Doctor was only slightly frustrated to discover that there were a few Time Lords already standing around the room; evidently, even with Quamtaanian technology being as advanced as it was, the Time Lords didn't feel inclined to leave it completely unattended.

It was going to be a bit messier than he'd like to deal with this mess, but if he was going to get himself out of here, he'd just have to move as fast as possible and hope for the best; he'd worry about the fine details later.

As he quickly struck down the nearest guard before they could recognise him- he'd been better at hand-to-hand a few bodies ago, but he wasn't without his talents in this incarnation either-, he smiled slightly as he saw Compassion knock the next couple of guards into unconsciousness; he might not appreciate violence as a means of solving problems, but when the stakes were this high and time was potentially short, it was nice to have a quick and simple way to resolve the situation.

Hurrying over to the nearest console, the Doctor gave himself a few moments to study the controls in front of him before he quickly began to make the relevant adjustments, powering down the central core and taking a quick glance at the schematics of the city- another advantage of Quamtaanian technology was that it was so interconnected it was easy to determine where they'd decided to hide his future self.

"How's things?" Compassion asked, her tone reflecting Fitz's usual mannerisms; apparently his other companion was talking through Compassion for the moment.

"Well, I've found where they're keeping me; all I need to do now is ensure that we can get him out without any of them following us afterwards," the Doctor said, nodding resolutely as he began to tap the relevant controls; it had been a while since he'd had to do this kind of thing, but at least Time Lord computer programming hadn't changed much over the decades, and after accessing the Matrix anything else they had to offer him was virtual child's play. "Just give me a few moments to ensure that our tracks have been covered..."

Quickly studying the computers before him, the Doctor rapidly began to enter the necessary programming codes to accomplish his main goal; not only did he have to restore Compassion's ability to dematerialise by 'tweaking' the transduction barriers to allow her through- while setting up a viral worm that would shut down the system and wipe all data if anyone tried to use it to find information about Compassion's operating systems after they left; _any _knowledge they could gain about Compassion might be enough to help them track her-, but he also had to ensure that all other TARDISes remained grounded until some time after the four of them had managed to get off this planet so that they couldn't be pursued before they'd managed to find out who had led the Time Lords to him in the first place.

He might not know much about the circumstances that had led his future self to come back to warn him, but he did know that he wouldn't have come into a situation like this on purpose; whatever had resulted in the Time Lords finding them now was almost certainly something to do with whatever circumstances had brought his future self back here in the first place, which meant that there was something _very _wrong with this whole situation that they had to remedy as soon as possible...

* * *

"Come now, Doctor," Romana said, still looking at him with a frustrating sense of sympathy that had looked far more convincing on her last incarnation- mainly because the Doctor could actually believe that Romana felt sympathy in that body- as another barrage at his mental barriers finally ceased, "we all know that you can't keep this up forever; why not just stop now?"

"And I think that all those years we've spent together should have helped you understand why I _won't _do that," the Doctor replied, glaring back at Romana while ignoring his torturer. "I've never compromised my principles before, Romana, and I'm not going to start now; I _can't _give you future information-!"

"Look, we both know that the only way you could have come back to this time in the first place is because the Time Lords of your era gave you permission to be here; do you really think they'd _mind _if you gave us some help?" Romana asked, smiling at him in that same manner that would have looked fine on her previous incarnation but just looked wrong when this one did it. "Maybe you just don't know that you were the one who gave us what we needed to win? All you have to do is give us a _few _pieces of minor-but-significant information; we're hardly asking for an entire battle strategy...

The Doctor didn't even bother countering Romana's argument; there was nothing that he could come up with to counter her assumption about the reason for being here that she would accept or that he wanted to reveal.

For all that he might have disagreed with Romana's current policies, they both knew that he would never have actively helped any enemies of the Time Lords, which meant that Romana's conclusion was the only one that she could come up with without realising what the real reason was; he could come back to visit himself in this era if there was nobody to enforce the rules that stopped him from crossing his own timeline (It was the advantage of him travelling so much, really; Gallifrey's past might be inaccessible to him, but that only applied for visits or attempts to contact the planet itself, rather than people who went off-planet at some point in its past).

He couldn't let that happen.

Romana had made some mistakes, but she didn't deserve to know that everything she was trying to save would be destroyed...

"Excuse me," a voice suddenly said from behind Romana, prompting her and the other Time Lord to turn around and look at the source of the voice, only to find herself being struck on the side of the neck with a quick pinch that sent her falling to the ground, followed by a familiar red-haired woman kicking the Doctor's torturer in the head with a powerful blow that sent him to the ground, leaving the Doctor to smile at the welcome sight of Compassion standing alongside his eighth self.

"Interesting choice of attire," he said, indicating his other self's Gallfreyian robes. "How long has it been since we dressed like that?"

"Our inauguration for me, I think; there wasn't really a reason to wear these during our last few visits to Gallifrey," the Eighth Doctor said, shrugging off the robe to reveal his usual attire underneath, the coat slightly rumpled but otherwise as fine as ever. "Are you all right, Compassion?"

"Just... uncomfortable," Compassion said, shivering slightly as she looked firmly at the Doctor even as she reached down to remove his bonds. "I hope you don't ask me to do that 'stealth materialisation' thing too often; that's _really _not that comfortable..."

"Don't worry," the Doctor said, looking firmly at his old friend and transportation as he stood up, placing his hands reassuringly on Compassion's shoulders as he smiled slightly at her. "I never bothered to fix the old girl's chameleon circuit because I didn't really mind her attracting attention; the same rule will always apply to you."

"I'm right, Compassion," the Eighth Doctor said, grinning at his newest TARDIS as he nodded in agreement at his past self's words. "It might be quieter, but we know how that feels to you; we'd never ask you to do it if circumstances didn't demand it."

"_Can we get out of here, please_?" Compassion's mouth suddenly said in Fitz's voice. "_I'm getting a _bit_ worried in here_..."

"Oh, right; sorry," the Doctor said, smiling apologetically as Compassion opened herself up to admit them once again. "I assume we're good to go?"

"I've set the computer to delete all reference to Compassion's materialisation code sequence once we've gone and maintain the transduction barriers on a rotating code for the next two days," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at his future self. "They'll get out eventually, but it will take them a while and they definitely won't be able to follow us any time soon; that should give us enough time to work out what was going to attack us and trace it back to its origin, and then... actually, how _are _you getting back to your ship?"

"Oh, don't worry about that; I have a recall circuit," the Doctor said, packing his pocket reassuringly (It was a good thing Romana had decided not to bother searching him; his captors might have been Time Lords, but that didn't mean they had infinite patience). "Once you're gone, I can bring in my ship and all should be fine; in the meantime, let's see about finding where to go next, shall we?"

This wouldn't be as easy as it would have been if he'd still had his original TARDIS- Compassion was fine, but she didn't exactly have access to his old ship's flight records-, but he should be able to trace the relevant vortex activity he'd identified in his future to trace their enemy back to the source.

Hopefully, he could sort this all out before he said or did anything that would tip his future self off about what they were about to do...

* * *

AN 4: Short, but I hope it worked; coming up next, the Doctors come together at last, as they begin to explore just _who _is responsible for attacking them all in the first place...


	34. Doctors United

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: As promised, we're back in Cardiff with the Doctors; just remember that 'the Doctor' refers to the Tenth Doctor, and everything else should be obvious

AN 2: When the First Doctor meets the Eighth, he's referring to their brief meeting in 'The Eight Doctors'; during that novel, the Eighth Doctor suffered from amnesia due to a trap left by the Master, and was forced to visit his seven previous selves to regain his memories via mental contact with his younger incarnations, with the First Doctor explaining what he had to do and would have to meet to return to normal

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As he walked out of Compassion, Fitz and his past self close behind him before Compassion's doors closed behind them- he'd activate the remote controller to draw the TARDIS to this location if it became appropriate; he didn't want to attract too many questions about the old girl from his past self-, the Doctor cursed the sudden sensation he felt as the hair on the back of his neck suddenly became more alert.

There had definitely been something to be concerned about when he'd noticed the source of the distortions that had triggered the attacks on his past selves, but he'd hoped that the worst he would have to deal with was just trying to explain why Jack existed to his eighth self and he could then focus on resolving the problem with his younger self's aid; the sensations he was feeling now made it clear that at least two more of his past incarnations were already in Cardiff, and the lack of TARDIS 'residue' around the currently-chaotic rift suggested that they'd been here for a while...

"Right," Compassion said, shuddering slightly as she closed up after the Eighth Doctor and Fitz had left her, "I hope you won't mind if I ask that you _not _ask me to go through something like _that _again?"

"Oh, no worries; I wouldn't expect you to have to go through that kind of turbulence unless it somehow becomes absolutely necessary," the Eighth Doctor replied, looking reassuringly back at Compassion before he turned to look at his future self. "And on the topic of necessity, how did the Cardiff rift become so volatile?"

"Long story that this isn't the time for-" the Doctor began.

"I don't suppose that you would be willing to _make _time, my boy?" a familiar voice said from behind them.

Turning around, the Doctors couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight of the old man standing behind them; he might be a bit stubborn at times, but it was always somehow... nice... to see the body they'd had when they were starting out, back when they could fool themselves into thinking that things were simple and they could just travel around the universe without needing to take action wherever they landed...

They might still travel for holidays or the simple pleasure of exploration if they could, but if they encountered a threat these days, they could no longer even try to ignore it and just go on their way in the hopes that those they'd met could sort out the problem themselves; the lessons they'd learned when they were this man weren't something they could easily forget.

"If it were any other time, I would, but this isn't any other time, so I can't; too many other things to be dealing with right now to waste time explaining _that _issue," the Doctor said, smiling apologetically at his past self. "Still, good to see you anyway, Doctor."

"_Doctor_?" Fitz repeated, looking incredulously at the old man (The Doctor just hoped that his past self hadn't actually _seen _them arrive and was assuming that the TARDIS was just around a corner or something; Compassion was a complicated story at the best of times, and he'd rather not share that particular part of his history with his more distant past selves even if they wouldn't remember it later). "He's... you're _him_?"

"Naturally," the First Doctor said, looking at his future companion with a pointed stare. "The original, you might say."

"The orig-" Fitz repeated, looking at the First Doctor for a moment before his eyes widened in understanding as he looked back at the Eighth Doctor. "You mean, this is what you looked like before you did that... _regenerating _thing?"

"Yes, this is the body I was born in," the Eighth Doctor said, indicating his first incarnation before he turned to address himself with a smile. "Anyone else here yet?"

"Just the old fellow in velvet I'll be two bodies from now," the First Doctor said, shaking his head slightly as he looked his future self over once again. "Well, it's good to see you more together than you were, my boy; I take it you made contact with the rest of us successfully?"

"Oh, quite successfully, I assure you; thanks for your advice, by the way," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling back at him, even if Fitz and Compassion both noticed the slight edge in his stare as the older Doctor studied the other. "Who's here with you?"

"Susan, Chatterton and Miss Wright, of course; who else would be here?" the First Doctor asked, looking curiously at him.

"You'd be surprised," the Doctor said, smiling back at his youngest self- so ignorant of the scale of the journey that he was just beginning at this point in his life or how many friends he'd make in the centuries of travel to come-, before he began to walk towards the large fountain over the Torchwood base, only for the sound of more TARDISes dematerialising prompting him to look sharply over in the direction of the noise. He only relaxed slightly when he realised that it was three police boxes gathered around the area where Jack had said the Hub was located; additional Doctors being present might attract further questions-

"Oh, no..." he said, his eyes widening as the door of one of the TARDISes opened and his fifth incarnation walked out, followed by Amy and Donna.

He'd known that the attacks were bad, but to know that there was enough danger out there for the _rest_ of him to want to come here...

Evidently Cardiff was the source of more trouble than they'd initially suspected; not only would the initial attack have had to be serious to draw in more other versions of himself to help fend off the assault, but whatever had been after his past selves must have been located here-

His brain seemed to freeze as he registered the small group of people currently travelling with his fourth and sixth selves; Romana was almost to be expected, and it was definitely nice to see Alistair again- he'd kept on meaning to visit his oldest friend since he regained his memory, but he'd just never been able to find the time-, but _Claire_...

Of all the people his sixth self could have been travelling with, it had to be _Claire_; she'd barely had any time to even accept that he was a time-traveller, and here she was, stuck in the middle of what was potentially one of the most dangerous situations he'd ever been forced to deal with?

He wasn't sure what made this turn of events more awkward; her lack of experience, or the fact that he couldn't do _anything _to save her life, no matter how much he wanted to?

Still, that was the way that things were, and he'd just have to deal with it; at least he could maybe take this opportunity to spend a bit more time with her in a way that he'd been unable to when she'd originally worked with him and Alistair...

"Ah, hello, Doctors," the Eighth Doctor said, walking over to smile warmly at his past selves; whether he'd simply not registered Claire's presence yet or had managed to suppress his reaction, the Doctor couldn't be certain.

"Oh, it's you!" the Fourth Doctor said- at least they all looked younger than his fifth self had last time they met; evidently so many of them being here was allowing the time differential disruption to be 'dispersed' across his various other selves with the result that none of them looked significantly older than they should-, smiling at his future self before a thought occurred to him. "Hold on-"

"Oh, I've visited you to deal with that particular issue in your future already; this is a totally different matter, I assure you," the Eighth Doctor said, shaking his younger self's hand before he moved on to the other two Doctors, his gaze lingering only briefly on Claire before he settled on Donna. "And you are?"

"I'm with him, normally," Donna said, indicating the Doctor as he walked up to stand beside his past self, the self-titled 'best temp in Chiswick' looking at him with her usual frustrated smile of amused exasperation, her voice lowering slightly as she walked closer to him in order to address him more directly. "You're not still brooding, are you, sunshine?"

"Brooding?" the Doctor said, smiling at his current companion, hoping that his past selves hadn't had time to register his initial reaction to their presence even as he took care to keep his voice low as he replied. "Who said I was brooding?"

"There's at least four of you in the same place and you can't tell them anything to make their lives easier; I'd say that'd give anyone a reason to brood," Donna said, her voice still low as she smiled nonchalantly at him even as the look in her eyes made it clear that she knew why he couldn't say anything more detailed.

"Time is far too delicate a thing for us to meddle freely, Miss...?" the First Doctor said, looking pointedly at Donna.

"Donna Noble," Donna replied, looking back at the First Doctor with a stare of her own, only for it to falter as she looked from him to the other Doctors. "Well... this is... awkward, right?"

"To say the least," the Sixth Doctor said, rolling his eyes as he looked over at his future selves. "I will admit that I'm slightly curious about how you could have brought us together like this, but right now the more important issue is establishing why you brought us all here in the first place."

"I assume it has something to do with Captain Harkness?" the First Doctor asked, looking inquiringly over at the present Doctor.

"Captain Harkness?" the Fourth Doctor repeated. "Who's- ah, never mind," he continued, halting himself after a brief glare from the First Doctor prompted a momentary widening of eyes in understanding from the three new arrivals.

"A _fact_?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking incredulously at his oldest self. "You created a _fact_-?"

"It wasn't me, it wasn't intentional- the person responsible didn't really know what they were doing-, and how it happened isn't relevant right now; what's _important is_-" the Doctor began, before the sound of another TARDIS drew the Doctors' attention off the current topic as they turned to face the source of the noise. For a moment, the new TARDIS's location was unclear, but then one of the illuminated pillars standing around the Plass began to shimmer and the Doctor realised what was happening.

"Over there," he said, a slight smile on his face as he indicated the appropriate pillar to his younger selves. "It looks like this ship's chameleon circuit works; the pilot's materialising around something to blend in better."

As the other Time Lords turned to look at the shimmering pillar just before it solidified, the Doctor wasn't surprised to see his seventh incarnation come walking out, followed by Elizabeth Klein; it might be awkward to have to deal with Klein again, but at least they had the benefit of her ruthless experience in a situation this complicated.

As Rose walked out of the newly-arrived TARDIS, the Doctor tried not to wince at the sight of her; even if the presence of his ninth self made it clear that this Rose wasn't the Rose he'd fought over a year ago, coupled with the fact that he knew that the Master had played some part in making her into what she'd become during that whole mess, it was still far from comfortable to find himself facing _her _again...

He wasn't sure if it was better or worse to see Serena come out of the TARDIS after Rose, followed by his second incarnation; he couldn't deny that Serena could offer an interesting new perspective on this crisis, and it would certainly be nice to have the chance to work with her for more time than he had previously, but the knowledge of what was going to happen to her just made it more complicated...

Then the seventh person inside the newest TARDIS present walked out of the ship, and the Doctor's inner conflict about the sight of his other past companions was forgotten.

"MARTHA!" he said, smiling broadly as he saw his partner and present companion turn to face him, a broad grin on her face as she did so.

With the tension of his recent encounter with Romana's third self still driving his emotional state, he didn't even stop to think; he just ran towards Martha while bypassing his other selves, grabbed her in a hug, and then gave her a deep and enthusiastic kiss, only realising as he parted from her that his past incarnations were looking at him with varying degrees of incredulity, to say nothing of some of his companions.

Admittedly, Amy, Compassion and Claire appeared relatively nonchalant about his recent actions while Klein just seemed to be relatively indifferent, and even Rose just seemed to be confused more than anything else- most likely she hadn't realised who he was yet-, but the rest of the former companions present were looking at him in varying degrees of surprise, and his other selves seemed to be completely taken aback by his reaction to Martha, even if his eighth self was hiding a grudging smile of approval.

"Well," the Brigadier said at last, smiling over at the Doctor as he met the eyes of his present self, "I certainly wasn't expecting to see you have _that _kind of relationship with a companion, Doctor."

"Things change, Brigadier," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly as he looked unapologetically at his oldest human friend before he turned slightly to better address the rest of his other selves. "And before any of you say anything, I started this relationship some time after my regeneration and we're both fully prepared for whatever complications might come up; let's just say that I've... reconsidered our stance on things and leave it at that, all right?"

"But-!" the Sixth Doctor began, glaring indignantly at his future self, before the Eighth Doctor stepped over to place a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"As he just pointed it, it's probably best if we just assume that we know what I'm doing and leave him alone, shall we?" he said, smiling at his younger self in a polite but firm manner, even as the slightly sceptical expression on his face as he glanced over at the Doctor made it clear that he wasn't entirely sure about his future self's decision either (Not that the Doctor couldn't see where he was coming from; as he recalled, it was his eighth self who'd started to speculate and acknowledge the possibility that he could have a closer relationship with the humans he travelled with than friendship, even his awareness of the complexities of such a bond at the time had made it impractical to pursue anything further).

"Quite, my boy, quite," the First Doctor said, nodding in agreement at the Eighth Doctor's comment even as he looked at the Doctor in a manner that made it obvious he was wondering what chain of events had prompted his future self to make that kind of decision. "Now then, if you don't mind, I believe that Captain Harkness and his team have some things they would like to share with us."

As the Doctors and their companions turned to follow the First Doctor- the Doctor noticed his seventh self sharing some whispered words with Klein that the former Nazi scientist clearly didn't like to hear even if her resigned nod showed that she had accepted his request to stay quiet-, the Doctor grabbed the arm of his ninth self, hauling the Doctor in the leather jacket back to address him directly.

"Don't tell them," he said, looking earnestly at his immediate predecessor, the only person present who knew the full scale of what they had done . "It won't help anyone, and we did what we had to do; we couldn't be the Doctor if we'd done anything differently."

For a moment, as his previous incarnation glared at him, the Doctor didn't know how his past self was going to respond- it was increasingly unnerving to realise just how little he'd really known himself in this body, now that he was face-to-face with it-, but the other man finally nodded.

"Fine," he said, staring back at his future self. "You keep quiet, I'll keep quiet."

The Doctor just wished that he could trust his immediate predecessor as easily as he could trust the other eight; after his self-analysis during the Year That Never Was, he had _serious _doubts about his mental state in that body, particularly when the younger Doctor was about to spend time working with not only reminders of the people he'd failed to save, but the two incarnations he'd blamed for putting him in his present position.

* * *

A few minutes later, the Doctors and their companions were gathered in the Torchwood Hub, with all the relevant introductions having been made (Leela's presence on Earth had surprised the younger Doctors who recognised her, but she had simply explained that she had left Gallifrey after she and Andred had divorced and the Doctors had been content to leave it at that; personal relationships were something they would never feel comfortable discussing), the various TARDIS travellers were studying a map of Cardiff on the screen of one of the Hub's many computers.

"As far as we can determine," Toskiko Sato said, indicating a large circle that had been drawn out on top of the map as she looked around at the others, her expertise and knowledge of the Rift having resulted in her being 'appointed' the one to give this speech, "the current disruptions caused by the Rift begin around this line and continue to occur at a variety of locations within the area outlined; so far it's limited to relatively minor moments- people appearing and disappearing within a minute or two at most-, but at the rate the rift energy's growing, things are only going to get worse unless we can find some way to contain it."

"I take it this isn't normal behaviour for your rift?" Serena asked, looking curiously over at the Japanese computer expert.

"It's always been a problem, of course- particularly when we recently confirmed that the Rift takes things away as well as bringing them here-, but it's never been _this _bad; it's like something... escalated Rift turbulence somehow," Tosh confirmed, nodding in confirmation of the other woman's assessment before she turned back to the computer. "If we don't even know what caused this problem, it really limits our ability to figure out a solution to it."

"I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate that whatever caused this disruption isn't drawing anything else here that shouldn't be," Romana said, shrugging slightly as she and Serena exchanged the occasional glance with each other as though trying to place where they might have met even if they remained focused on the task at hand. "The only question is why?"

"Why what?" Rose asked, looking over in confusion at the Time Lady (Not that the Doctors had mentioned Romana and Serena's identities to the others; even the Second knew that telling the First Doctor that kind of information about their future would be too complicated regardless of the fact that he'd forget it later).

"Why someone would do something like this," the Sixth Doctor clarified, looking over at the blonde girl with a briefly frustrated glare before he continued his explanation. "Anyone with the knowledge to do something like this to this rift should also know just how foolish it is to even _attempt _such a thing, the increased strain could spread out far beyond just dumping a few people and things from other times and planets, even if comparatively little damage has been inflicted so far-"

"Could we possibly _not _start thinking about how bad things could get and focus on making sure they don't get any worse?" Fitz asked, looking at the Sixth Doctor in frustration. "I _think _we've got enough on my plate without panicking about worse-case-scenarios like that..."

"Mr Krenier is correct; this is the time to focus on what should be done now, rather than worrying about what might happen later," the Brigadier said, looking firmly at his fellow companions and the various Doctors. "Is there any way for us to undo whatever is happening to the rift at this time?"

"We've tried a few ideas, but they're not proving to be easy to put into practise," the Third Doctor said apologetically. "We can maybe reconfigure the Rift manipulator-"

"We don't have the time for something like that," Tosh said, shaking her head as she looked over the screen in front of her. "Judging by the rate of whatever's happening to the rift, it's going to spread beyond its usual boundaries and start affecting territory beyond the Cardiff area long before we can stop it this way; we have to find a way to keep this contained before it gets any worse."

"How?" Barbara asked uncertainly. "Set up... barricades of some sort?"

"Maybe..." the Eighth Doctor said, looking at his first human companion with a thoughtful smile before he snapped his fingers. "The TARDIS!"

"The TARDIS?" Owen repeated, looking at the Eighth Doctor in confusion (He and the rest of the team had heard enough stories from Jack and Leela to know that the Doctor could change his face, as well as the things they'd read in the UNIT reports about past missions involving the Doctor that Tosh had managed to hack, but it was still disorientating to accept that these men were all the same person). "Isn't that your transport?"

"Among other things, Doctor Harper, but this isn't the time to quibble about semantics," the Eighth Doctor said before he turned to address his other selves. "If we take our TARDISes to certain key locations around the city- particular hotspots for Rift activity are an obvious option- and sync up their force field generators, we should be able to establish a transduction barrier that will contain the currently-generated rift energy by channelling the excess into the TARDIS force fields, allowing us to drain off the disruptive rift energy and use it to maintain the fields until we can track the source of this disruption."

"You'd be using the TARDISes as... nodes to establish the shield?" Tosh said, looking at the Doctors curiously. "I know that my knowledge of time travel is only what's possible via the rift, but wouldn't the fact that they're the _same _ship cause a few problems?"

"Not really; not only did I come here in a different TARDIS anyway- my usual ship's been lost for the moment-, but we've made enough ad hoc modifications over the years that what we can contribute to such a field varies slightly from TARDIS to TARDIS even when it's the same version," the Seventh Doctor said, shrugging nonchalantly at the Japanese computer expert before he looked over at his other selves. "Anyway, we've got a plan now, so we'd better get on with things; there's no point waiting around when things are as bad as this, after all."

"Quite," the First Doctor said, looking over the map as he nodded thoughtfully to himself. "There are a few key areas that we should investigate first, of course- we shall need a few moments to decide where we should approximately position our TARDISes for maximum effect-, but in general I think that the young fellow's plan is our best chance of making the right impact on this mess."

"Right then," the Fifth Doctor said, clapping his hands together as he looked at his other selves, "let's get on with things, shall we? First things first, now many of us actually came here in our TARDISes and who just hitched a lift in someone else's?"

* * *

As the other Doctors, their various companions, and the rest of the Torchwood team talked about their upcoming plans, none of them noticed as the Ninth Doctor, who had been silently watching the discussion from the back, kept his eyes fixed on Ianto Jones when the young man suddenly walked off to the conference room to make the coffee. Taking a brief look around to confirm that nobody was looking in his direction- they were all focused on the screen immediately in front of them-, the Ninth Doctor walked briskly after the other man, closing the door to the kitchen area behind him as Ianto turned to look at him.

"Doctor?" he said, looking uncertainly at the man in the leather jacket. "What is-?"

"Look," the Ninth Doctor said, glaring firmly at Ianto, "you might be able to fool the gentleman who doesn't know what's going to happen to her later, and you might be able to fool the git in the suit who's focused on other things, but I know what the link feels like, so I _know_ what you're in and don't try to deny it, OK?"

For a moment, Ianto simply stood and looked back at the Ninth Doctor in silence, before he rolled his eyes and sighed.

"All right then, Doctor," he said, a resigned tone to his voice, as though he'd been expecting this to happen and was only surprised that it hadn't happened earlier. "Since you haven't given me away to the other yous yet, what do you want?"

"To confirm that I know what you're up to," the Ninth Doctor said, his voice lowering as he continued to stare firmly at the Welshman. "And... to offer you my help."

* * *

AN 3: To anyone who objects to that last scene, I draw attention back to the revelations in 'Broken Faith' regarding the Ninth Doctor's mental state- the man had _serious _issues that he never fully tackled when he was active-, and assure you that things with Ianto are more complicated than him turning traitor; let's just say that the 'villain interludes' are going to start making sense in the next few chapters...


	35. Reflecting on the Past With the Past

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Hope this chapter meets with your approval; working out the personal dynamics between certain characters in this chapter was _not _easy...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Looking at the people working away at their various assignments in the Hub around her, the Torchwood team collaborating with the various TARDIS crews to identify the best locations to position the TARDISes for their upcoming plan, Martha wasn't sure how she should feel about this whole situation.

It wasn't like it was the first time that she had been in the same room as old companions of the Doctor- she'd met several of them during her trip around Earth during the Master's reign, and then there was the 'Companion's Christmas Celebration' that Ace had arranged in the aftermath where there'd definitely been more than the group present here, even if there were a few unfamiliar faces and some younger versions of the ones she'd met on that occasion-, but somehow, meeting people after they'd left the Doctor wasn't the same as meeting them when they were still travelling with him. Maybe it was the fact that she knew the futures of some of them and couldn't do anything to change it, maybe it was because some of the ones she was meeting now were technically dead by 'this' time (In the Doctor's timeline, anyway), or maybe...

In the end, it didn't matter what she tried to tell herself, really; they were in a complicated situation no matter how you tried to look at it, and the ten Doctors and their various allies were just going to have to deal with it and hope that things worked out.

If only they knew _who _they were up against, she might feel more comfortable about the position they were currently stuck in, but right now all they had to go on was a general idea that their foe would have to possess an exceptional amount of power and intelligence to come up with such a plan in the first place, and no idea how they could narrow down the list of suspects in time to do any good. The Doctor's second and sixth incarnations were working with the Doctor she knew to try and work out a list of suspects while the other, more technically-minded Doctors worked out the fine details of their current plan, but even with Romana and Serena helping the Doctors their best estimates guessed that they wouldn't be ready to establish the shield until the evening.

The rift might be comparatively stable so far, but that still left them with far too much time for something to go wrong for comfort. Tosh and Claire- as the companion least able to contribute anything to the current crisis due to her apparent inexperience; Martha wondered how long she'd travelled with the Doctor if he'd never mentioned her before now- were keeping an eye on the Rift's energy readings in case the situation changed, and Leela, Jack and Gwen were ready to take action to investigate new anomalies that might emerge before they were finished even as they assisted with other efforts, but Martha knew as well as anyone that they were really just trying to keep busy in the face of how little they could really contribute to facing a threat like this.

The Doctor might need them to offer him a human perspective on the wonders and dangers he witnessed in his travels at times, but there were so few occasions where they were actually able to contribute some kind of unique service when things reached this kind of point...

"So..." a voice said from off to the side, prompting Martha to turn around and look at the speaker, her eyes widening uncomfortably at the sight of Susan (The Doctor's _granddaughter_; that was the most significant thing about this whole situation, meeting the Doctor's actual _family _for the first time). "You and my grandfather are...?"

"We... we are," Martha replied, nodding awkwardly back at Susan, feeling the inadequacy of that statement even as she voiced it.

She'd known about Susan since her meeting with Professor Chesterton- who was currently just Ian; she didn't want to slip up and call him by the wrong name-, but that didn't mean that she was entirely comfortable in this position. Dating the Doctor- as much as their unconventional relationship could be called 'dating'- was one thing when he was the last of his kind with no concern that he would be judged by his peers- as much as he liked humans, she'd gathered enough to know that Time Lords as a whole would have seen a relationship with them as degrading at best-, but when she was face-to-face with his _grandchild_...

"Look," she said, looking awkwardly at the younger woman, "I... well, I don't know much about you; you left the Doctor long before I met him, and... I'm sorry, but-"

"Are you happy with Grandfather?" Susan asked, the expression on the young girl's face suggesting that she was fighting her own desire to just avoid this whole conversation to satisfy her immediate curiosity (Not that Martha could blame her for her discomfort; the idea of her father dating someone else hadn't exactly been a comfortable thought even if things between him and her mother had been cool for a while before the divorce, and she had no idea what kind of relationship the Doctor and Susan had shared with the other members of their family).

"Well... yeah," Martha said, smiling awkwardly at the girl before her. "I mean, I know he's a lot older than me, but I don't really think about that part of it that much; he's strange, and he makes inappropriate comments, and he's got this... well, he's got issues, let's just leave it at that," she said, stopping herself before she said anything that might attract too many questions (Mentioning the Doctor's guilt might lead to questions about what he had to feel guilty about, which would _not _help her avoid mentioning the destruction of Gallifrey to anyone who shouldn't know about it).

"But..." she continued, her smile becoming more sincere as she looked t Susan, "underneath all that, he's the strongest, bravest, kindest, noblest man I've ever met."

"Grandfather?" Susan said, looking at Martha in surprise.

"I know he's a bit... rough around the edges from when you're travelling with him," Martha said, smiling as she recalled her brief meeting with the First Doctor during those dark days as she travelled the Earth ruled by the Master, as well as the stories the Doctor had told her about some of his younger selves, "but he's got the potential in him to be far more than what he is for you; he'll save so many people, defy so many monsters and villains..."

She shrugged as she looked at Susan. "Your grandfather's a hero to most of us; what else is there to say?"

Looking over at where the oldest-looking Doctor was working with Jack, a young woman that Martha vaguely recognised as Jo Grant, and the Doctor dressed like Austin Powers- the Doctor's third incarnation, if Martha recalled correctly-, Susan smiled thoughtfully.

"He never _did _fit in back home," she said, looking at Martha with a sudden uncertainty. "So... if you're involved with Grandfather..."

"You don't have to call me 'Grandmother' or anything like that," Martha said, smiling reassuringly at the young girl. "You'll always be his granddaughter, but I'm not expecting to replace _her_, I promise."

It was a weird thing to say when Martha had never even learned who Susan's grandmother was or what she was like- all that the Doctor would say when asked was that his family history where Susan was concerned was complicated, and Martha respected his decision to leave the issue alone-, but she felt that it needed to be said, and younger woman's gratified smile in return was all that she needed to know that she'd given the appropriate response.

Still... as Susan smiled gratefully back at her, Martha tried not to think about the part of her that was privately wondering what it would be like to actually be a part of the Doctor's 'official' family, rather than just being a _very _close companion...

She'd always accepted that she and the Doctor would never have a particularly traditional relationship, but even she wasn't entirely sure what limitations she would and wouldn't be satisfied with...

* * *

"So," the First Doctor said, looking pointedly at Captain Harkness as the two of them worked with the Third Doctor and Jo at reconfiguring the Torchwood computer systems, "you are a Fact, I believe?"

"Yeah," Jack replied, nodding back at the First Doctor; he might be on the alert for anything that might require his attention before they had the TARDIS network established, but given his own experience with the Torchwood computers and Tosh's greater experience with the Rift itself, he was the best candidate to help these two Doctors set up the TARDIS-Hub interface (Jo was mainly there in her official role as the Doctor's assistant). "Is that a problem?"

"Only because you should not exist," the First Doctor said, staring firmly at the other man. "I don't know how I can tolerate your presence in future-"

"If it helps, he doesn't at first; he ran when I first became this, and then your ship tried to drag me to the end of the universe to throw me off when we met up again," Jack replied, shrugging slightly at the older-looking man, trying to sound more casual than he felt; he understood the reasons for the Doctor and the TARDIS's earlier treatment of him, but that didn't mean it didn't still smart a bit.

"I'm sorry, but what's all this stuff about a 'fact'?" Jo asked, looking at her Doctor in confusion before she looked at Jack. "Who... What does that mean for you?"

"Long story short, I can't die," Jack said, smiling at her in a slightly morbid manner.

Jo blinked as though she was trying to process what she'd just heard.

"_What_?" she said, looking at the Torchwood leader in surprise, after a few moments of silence as though she was trying to confirm that she'd heard the other man correctly. "You... you can't _die_?"

"It's due to his unique nature as a fact, Jo," the Third Doctor explained, looking awkwardly over at his assistant. "You see, under circumstances that I cannot immediately identify, Captain Harkness here has been altered to become such a vital part of the timeline of any location he is in that the universe itself essentially 'insists' that he must exist, regardless of what kind of damage he sustains or what conditions he finds himself in."

"Really?" Jo said, looking at Jack in renewed understanding. "_Incredible_..."

"And fundamentally wrong," the First Doctor said, looking grimly at Jack. "Why I haven't done anything about your condition-"

"You can't," Jack said, looking grimly back at the old man. "Believe me, if you could do something, you would have done it- I didn't ask for this to happen, and don't ask me to tell you how it _did _happen because that's a whole other story-, but you can't do anything about it and you've told me that yourself, so I'm just making the best of this condition and using it to do what you taught me."

"What we taught you?" the Third Doctor asked, looking over at his future companion with a slightly curious smile.

"Let's just say that I'm not the coward I was when we met and leave it at that, OK?" Jack said, looking back at the Doctor with a tone that made it clear that this discussion was over as far as he was concerned.

There were so many other things he would have asked his Doctor if he could have asked them- whether the fact that he was regenerating when he'd left Satellite Five had anything to do with his decision to leave, whether he'd ever sensed him during the Doctor's visits to Earth between his arrival in the past and their reunion last year-, but he also knew that he was never going to ask them; at heart, a part of him just didn't want to know the answer.

These Doctors, even if they were the same person, hadn't even experienced the events that he was thinking of yet; he wasn't even sure the oldest one was in a position to fully acknowledge what he had to teach the rest of the universe, when you got down to it.

"Well," Jo said, looking over at Jack with a reassuring smile, "for what it's worth, I'm sure we're all grateful for your help right now; whatever's disrupting that rift sounds like a situation where we need all hands on deck, after all."

"Quite," Jack said, nodding at the younger woman even as the four of them continued their work; she might not fully understand why what he had become was a bad thing from the Doctor's perspective, but she was making an effort anyway.

That was what it was like when you were the Doctor's companion and met your predecessors or successors in the end; eventually, you had to make a choice between being jealous of the other person of possibly having something with the Doctor that you didn't have or accepting them as someone who'd shared your experience, and leave it at that in the end.

* * *

As he looked at the people gathered around him in this facility, the Brigadier wondered what it said about him as a person that he could be comfortable dealing with a situation of this nature. He had joined the army with the goal of simply making his family proud and contributing something to the world, and now he found himself facing a threat to the fabric of reality itself, working with ten different versions of the same person all at once, to say nothing of currently being around eight years in his own personal future (He considered and immediately discarded the thought of calling himself; that incident at Brandon School when he had met himself still gave him headaches, and he'd only seen himself for a few seconds that time).

"How are you, Brigadier?" the brown-haired Doctor in velvet asked, walking over to sit down beside him (Now that the Brigadier looked at this man, he couldn't believe that he hadn't realised that this Doctor was _the _Doctor when they'd first met shortly after that incident with the Sea Devils; it was amazing how you yourself could change without regenerating, given how much more open he was to the idea now).

"About as well as could be expected, Doctor," the Brigadier said, smiling over at his old friend, grateful for the opportunity to think about something else. "I wasn't expecting this kind of situation, of course- I had enough to deal with learning that Adolf Hitler had a son a few hours ago-, but... well, I suppose I learned long ago that there's not much I can _completely _depend on in this world at times."

"Quite," the Doctor- the Eighth Doctor, the Brigadier was fairly sure he'd been identified as at some point- said, smiling back at him. "But it's always good to know what you can count on, Brigadier, and you're one of those constants; if we have to get involved in a mess like this, I'm sure that all of me are grateful to have you on our side for this crisis."

"Uh..." a voice said uncertainly from behind them, prompting the Doctor and the Brigadier to turn around and look at Claire Aldwych as she stood behind the two men, looking at the Brigadier as though trying to work out the best way to ask the question she wanted.

"Yes?" the Eighth Doctor asked, smiling encouragingly at Claire even as the Brigadier noticed a slight hint of sorrow in the older Doctor's eyes that he felt fairly certain he only registered because of his experience with the Time Lord in question. "What is it, Claire?"

"Well... why do you... I mean...?" Claire asked, waving her hands as she indicated the other Doctors standing around the Torchwood hub, working with each other or their other companions.

"How can I be so relaxed about this turn of events?" the Brigadier asked, smiling slightly at Claire. "Miss Aldwych, this is certainly the largest amount of Doctors I have witnessed in one room at the same time, but it is far from the only occasion that I have worked with multiple versions of him; any situation meriting this many of him coming together is complicated, of corse, but it is far from unprecedented."

"Oh," Claire said, clearly stuck for a more detailed response as she looked at the various men standing around the Hub, her mouth occasionally opening and closing as though she was trying to decide on the best way to say what she wanted to say before she finally voiced her confused thoughts. "So... they're _all _the Doctor?"

"Indeed they are, Miss Aldwych," the Brigadier said, nodding in confirmation at her. "I acknowledge that it is a difficult thing to process- I didn't believe it myself the first time I witnessed more than one of him in the same place at the same time-, but they are all the same man."

"At different points in my life, naturally, Claire," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling sympathetically at the young woman. "Believe me, I wouldn't have allowed you to become involved in this kind of situation if I had a choice- the situation you're investigating is a crisis that _must _be resolved as quickly as possible-, but the situation here is far from conventional; considering that this only ever happens in the most dire of emergencies, we didn't have the time to be picky."

"About that, I don't suppose you've heard from... them, have you, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked (The Time Lords were a tricky subject that the Brigadier was never entirely comfortable bringing up; he trusted the Doctor, but after his experiences with the Master and the Monk, to say nothing of what he'd learned about Rassilon and their culture's past during that affair with the Dark Tower and the Death Zone, he was decidedly sceptical about the _other _Time Lords).

"Not immediately, no," the Eighth Doctor said, shaking his head as he looked at his old friend; the Brigadier thought he saw the Doctor's glance shift to where the short Scottish-accented Doctor in the straw hat and umbrella was taking care to stay close to the blonde woman in the dark suit that he'd arrived here with, but it happened so quickly that he couldn't be sure. "It's possible that they just explained everything to the latest me and left it at that- we have shown that we can be trusted not to abuse the privilege of meeting myself, after all-, but the complete lack of the usual warnings against cross-temporal activity we should receive in this situation- no need to even deactivate the systems, quite frankly- is _very _suspicious..."

"Why not just ask him?" Claire asked, indicating the Doctor in the brown suit that had been identified by the others as the oldest Doctor present. "I mean, he's _you_-"

"You must _never _ask about your future, Claire," the Eighth Doctor said, looking earnestly at the young woman. "It's never worth knowing; even the good can be difficult to learn, and there's always the possibility of something bad coming up that you'll have to permit to happen because the consequences of changing it could be worse. The only reason any of this is permitted in the first place is that the TARDIS retroactively erases my memories of it when we part company once this situation is concluded, as well as blocking it from my companions so that they don't mention it earlier; the latest version of me present will then remember it from the perspectives of all of us, but that's it."

"Oh," Claire said, looking over at the Doctors standing around them. "That's... the oldest version's the guy in the brown suit, right?"

"You caught us in one of our... odder fashion phases," the Eighth Doctor said, shrugging slightly apologetically at the young woman. "The point is, whenever something like this happens, all steps have to be taken to ensure that we aren't even tempted to change whatever we might learn about our future history, which includes minor memory modification; I was able to get away with some brief visits to my past where they retained their memories, but since I was suffering from amnesia myself at the time I was able to limit the information I gave them to just the fact that they'd live to become me..."

"Is that what you meant when you said that you couldn't change them getting the Glass because you already knew they had it?" Claire asked, her eyes widening at the memory. "I thought you were just humouring him..."

"Oh, I've heard worse over the years, believe me," the Brigadier said, smiling reassuringly at the young woman before he looked at her with grim determination. "However, I trust you understand the Doctor's central point, Miss Aldwych; you _cannot _attempt to look up your friends in the present and use what you find to warn them about their futures when you return, as the consequences could be catastrophic."

As Claire nodded in understanding, the Brigadier couldn't help but smile at the growing gleam in her eyes as she took in the events taking place around them.

If all went well, he had a feeling that the Doctor he'd come here with would soon be welcoming Miss Aldwych into the TARDIS on a more full-time basis...

* * *

As she looked over at her old friend and teacher, back in the form that she'd first met him so many years ago, Leela wasn't sure if she wanted to cry or laugh. The knowledge that she was facing the Doctor who had shown her so much more than she could have once ever imagined existed in life, the Doctor who had unintentionally twisted and then deliberately saved her original world...

Even if she'd liked the Doctors she'd met during the rediscovery of Lungbarrow and the subsequent Zagreus crisis, this man standing before her would always be _her _Doctor...

"Doctor?" she said before she could stop herself, prompting the Doctor in the scarf to stop the calculations that he was working on and turn

"So..." the Doctor said, looking at her with an uncertainty that she couldn't recall him ever showing when he had first travelled with her. "You're... working here now?"

"I am," Leela said, nodding at him with a reassuring smile. "You do not have to be concerned, Doctor; I contribute both the knowledge I have gained from my time on Gallifrey and my skills as a warrior to this organisation, and take care not to kill unless I am unquestionably certain that I must..."

Her voice trailed off as she took in his expression more carefully. "But... that is not what worries you, is it?"

"No," the Doctor replied, his expression suddenly reflecting an awkward manner that Leela had never seen any Doctor demonstrate in the past. "It's just... well, I accepted your decision to stay with Andred because I assumed that you'd be happy, but-"

"What happened between Andred and I is no fault of your own, Doctor," Leela said, smiling reassuringly at the Time Lord that would always be 'her' Doctor, no matter what others she might meet. "Our relationship fell apart because of his own mistakes and a few of my own, and that is that; we had many good years together before things reached that stage, and that is all that matters."

"I'm... I'm glad," the Doctor said, smiling at her with the most awkward grin she'd ever seen this incarnation demonstrate; the little Doctor with the odd accent she had met during the crisis at Lungbarrow had been awkward at times, and she'd spent relatively little time with the Doctor who had become Zagreus, but this Doctor had always appeared so certain of what he was doing...

"Everything that I am now, Doctor, I am because of you, and I am happy with who I am," Leela said, reaching over to place a comforting hand on her friend and mentor's shoulder as she smiled reassuringly at him. "I learned how to be a warrior from my people, and I learned about time and its dangers from yours, but I learned from you the power of words and strength beyond merely beating my adversary into submission; you showed me how to be what I never knew I wanted to be, and I am grateful to you for that."

"Done!" the loud voice of the Doctor in the terrible coat suddenly yelled, prompting Leela and her Doctor to turn in the direction of the voice to see the older Doctor looking around from one of the Torchwood computers with a satisfied smile.

"You've identified the locations we need to go to?" the Time Lady the Doctors had identified as Serena asked (Leela thought she recalled hearing Serena's name mentioned in connection to the Doctor in some context, but aside from the fact that she had travelled with him for a time the precise details eluded her).

"Precisely," the Doctor said with a confirming nod as the others gathered around the screen, prompting him to indicate the relevant areas on the map of Cardiff he had pulled up in front of himself. "Given that a couple of us came here in the same TARDIS- and apparently two of us are using a _different _ship for reasons they're unwilling to share-, I've concluded that our best chance is to establish the network with six ships, each one spread out around this rift, with the two anomalous TARDISes located here in your 'Hub'. As a result-"

"The other TARDISes will establish the nodes in the network by drawing on the stable time energy on the outskirts of the rift and the more advanced TARDIS will channel that energy into the Rift Manipulator so that we can use that energy to cancel out the current disruption," the First Doctor said, looking at his older self with a slight smile. "Really, my boy, you cannot just explain everything to everyone; sometimes people prefer to focus on what they need to know."

"There's nothing wrong with ensuring that they understand the situation-" the Sixth Doctor began.

"Let's just stop this now, shall we?" the Fifth Doctor said, looking between his past and future selves with a hopeful smile, the slightly pleading expression in his eyes convincing the other two Doctors to remain silent before they said something that couldn't be taken back later.

"Well, at least we've got this sorted out," Gwen said, smiling hopefully at the others. "All that we need now is to get everyone in position and we're ready to go, right?"

"Good," Jo said, smiling at the people around her. "What do we do-?"

"Nothing," the First Doctor said, looking firmly at the young woman.

"What?" Jo asked.

"This is too complicated for us to have too many people in our ships at one time," the First Doctor said, looking firmly around the room at his various future companions. "We shall require our full focus to concentrate on establishing the network that we need to prevent further rift spillage and trace the source of this attack; with that in mind, only we shall be inside our TARDISes when the time comes.

"Not meaning to be picky, but... well, like he said, what about those of you who didn't bring your TARDISes?" Martha asked, looking uncertainly over at the First Doctor as she briefly indicated the Sixth. "I mean, I came here with three of you in one ship..."

"And I believe that we have two TARDISes that are not our original ship, correct?" the First Doctor added, looking over at the other Doctors and waiting for a confirming nod from them before he continued. "The little fellows can remain in the Scottish fellow's ship together, and I am sure that-"

"He can take my ship," the Doctor suddenly interjected, stepping forward and indicating the Ninth Doctor before he turned to face the Eighth. "I'll stay with me over there in this location."

It might attract questions, but it was better than the alternative; right now, he didn't entirely trust his ninth self to control his temper when he came face-to-face with the incarnation that actually been responsible for the actions that had culminated in the destruction of Gallifrey and the extinction of every other member of his race.

Leaving his TARDIS in the hands of another incarnation might be a bit uncomfortable- even if it was still him in control of the TARDIS, it wasn't _this _him-, but it had been the younger Doctor's console before it was his, so he should at least know what to do.

"Uh... out of curiosity, why do we need to leave a couple of TARDISes here?" Rose asked, looking uncertainly at the oldest-looking Doctor.

"It's a question of compatibility, Miss Tyler," the Seventh Doctor said, indicating the Hub around them. "No matter how advanced this place is, there is still going to be a compatibility issue if we try to transmit the data we are about to search for at long-range; with the TARDIS of myself and myself to serve as a filter for our other TARDISes, we should be able to acquire the necessary energy to sustain the barriers and then transfer it to the TARDISes located here, which will then find it easier to convert the information received into a format that the computers here can accept."

"It saves everyone 'on-site' having to worry about making the changes there?" Donna asked.

"That's... essentially correct, Miss Noble," the Third Doctor said, nodding politely at her before turning to look at his other selves. "Well then, let's be off; we've got six TARDISes to transport to those locations manually and no idea how long we have until the disruptions become serious."

As the Doctors, their companions, and the Torchwood staff headed off to work out a means of tackling their next challenge, nobody noticed the Ninth Doctor exchanging a brief but significant glance with Ianto Jones...

* * *

AN 2: With that chapter sorted, I can assure you of this; the next chapter will reveal not only what's up with Ianto, but will also allow the Doctors to learn the identities of their current enemies...


	36. The Men Behind the Curtains

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Not too certain about parts of this chapter, but I feel that the end result is worth it, as we learn just WHO the Doctors are up again (Although I'm saving the full details of the plan for the next chapter)

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Staring at the Hub screen as she and the other residents of the Hub waited for the moment when , Martha wondered what it said about her that she as grateful that the other companions hadn't asked her too many questions about her relationship with the Doctor she knew.

Speaking with Susan had been an awkward but necessary discussion to get out of the way, but talking with some of his other companions about her relationship with him would have just been strange at best. Most of them at least seemed to be content to leave the issue alone- most likely they concluded that what the Doctor did in his future from their perspective wasn't something they needed to poke their noses in, although that was probably helped by the fact that those companions left just considered the Doctor a friend rather than having any deeper feelings for him-, but Rose was looking at her with a confused hostility that suggested that she wasn't entirely certain how to respond to Martha's presence in the Doctor's future, and Romana and Serena were giving her thoughtful expressions as though trying to decide how they should feel about the idea of a human/Time Lord relationship.

Still, Martha could cope with a few pointed stares from those two- the Doctor was a good few centuries older than them by now, from what she recalled of his history with Romana, and she could be fairly sure that Serena was younger than the Doctor she'd arrived here with, so they'd probably just assume that the Doctor had his reasons and leave it at that-; right now, they had to focus on the immediate priority of getting this transduction barrier sorted out so that they could stabilise the Cardiff Rift and work out where to go next. Their enemy's plans might be unknown, but anything that tried to attack so many Doctors could _not _be up to anything good, and they had to stop it as soon as possible.

The Seventh and Third Doctors were in the Seventh's TARDIS positioned around the watertower above the facility- the working chameleon circuit had allowed them to materialise the TARDIS completely around the tower while assuming its appearance, the Seventh remaining as its pilot while the Third was there in case 'on-the-spot' modifications were required-, while the Eighth and Tenth Doctors were working inside Compassion (Although the Doctors had made sure that only the Torchwood team, Martha and Fitz were present when they'd entered their companion/TARDIS; they'd claimed that the Eighth's TARDIS had undergone various modifications that they would rather not share with anyone who didn't need to know about it and were hoping that the desperation of the current situation would stop anyone asking too many questions), leaving the other six Doctors to take the other six TARDISes to their designated locations.

Gwen had been able to get her husband Rhys to provide them with some trucks from his delivery business to transport the TARDISes, but things had gone fairly smoothly even with the need to bring in outside help; they'd had to cover the police boxes in sheets and claim that they were specialised equipment to avoid attracting too many awkward questions about why they were taking police boxes all over Cardiff, but Rhys had accepted the explanation well enough.

"Are we sure this is entirely safe?" Barbara asked, looking uncertainly at Jack as the assorted companions gathered around the Torchwood computers to prepare for what was about to happen. "I mean, I understand- sort of, anyway- that... the other Doctors... are older, but our... the Doctor I came here with... well, I trust him, but he isn't exactly as skilled at piloting the TARDIS as he could be..."

"Don't worry, Barbara," Susan said, smiling reassuringly at her former teacher and current companion despite her obvious confusion at the current topic of discussion. "What we're attempting to do has nothing to do with piloting the ship; all Grandfather has to do is channel the energy of the local rift in the appropriate manner, which doesn't require him to do anything more complicated than flicking some switches at the right moment."

"Why do I have a feeling that it's not going to be as simple as that?" Fitz asked, looking slightly apprehensively over at the younger girl.

"You're the Doctor's friend, Mr Krenier," Romana said with a smile. "I personally learned long ago- shortly after I started travelling with him, as a matter of fact- that he has a way of finding himself in the most complicated of situations even when his original purpose was relatively simple."

"Affirmative," K9 said from his position at Romana's feet, the robot dog connected up to the computers in the event of his additional processing power being required to completely control the power they were about to channel. "The Doctor-Master's habit of finding impossible danger is exceptional."

"Can we concentrate here?" Klein said, glaring firmly at the other companions (Martha got the impression that the other woman still saw herself as somehow 'superior' to the other companions, despite the fact that the Doctors had informed her of the reasons why her efforts to change history were doomed to fail; she was certain that the only reason the Doctor hadn't done whatever he was going to do to her yet was that he wanted to be sure these other problems were dealt with before he tried to do anything else as potentially complicated as what he'd implied Klein's sentence would be). "I am fairly certain that, regardless of the Doctor's competence, what we have to do will be a very challenging experience that will demand full attention of _all _concerned parties."

"We _do _understand that, Doctor Klein," the Brigadier said, glaring firmly at the woman. "If you would give us time to cope with what we're up against in our own way-"

"_Hello_?" the Fourth Doctor's voice said over the Hub radio, interrupting the current conversation as the makeshift team turned to look at the radio. "_Is everyone there_?"

"Yes," Amy replied, the sentient Tracer smiling at the radio as she picked it up. "Are you all right?"

"_Well, I've just been in contact with myselves around the city, and we're all ready to start absorbing the energy from the rift_," the Fourth Doctor replied. "_We just wanted to confirm that the four of us with you are ready to receive the energy once we start at this end_."

"Just a moment," Donna said, pulling out her mobile phone and quickly dialling a number, waiting for a moment until it was picked up at the other end. "Hello up there; just wanted to let you know that everyone out in the city's ready to start sending everything."

"_We're all ready to receive it here as well, Miss Noble_," the Seventh Doctor's voice said, Donna turning the phone's loudspeaker on so that the others in the room could hear his response.

"The Doctors confirm their readiness as well," Compassion said, adjusting her earpiece as she looked at the group.

"Right then," Owen said, looking inquiringly at the rest of the group as he clapped his hands together once, "shall we get started now?"

"Of course," Tosh said, smiling at the rest of the people in the Hub as she rapidly began to work away at the keyboard in front of her. As the assorted companions watched, the map of Cardiff displayed in front of them began to glow around the areas where the TARDISes had been positioned, followed by glowing lines emerging from the TARDISes on the map to connect the dots to the Hub. A faint hum could be heard as the TARDIS around the fountain above them began to absorb the energy being channelled through it, and Martha noticed a faint glow in Compassion's eyes as the sentient TARDIS walked over to stand close to the central fountain, allowing her to subtly redirect the power in the direction desired without anyone who didn't already know what Compassion was noticing it (Martha made a mental note to ask the Doctor for more information about how that particular twist had come about; what chain of events led to one of his old companions _becoming _a TARDIS?).

"It's working!" Tosh said, looking back at them with a smile as various graphs appeared on the screen, the charts before them quickly growing as the power of the rift was channelled through the TARDISes around the city into the ship positioned above the Hub.

"So, how long until we have what we need?" the Brigadier asked.

"At the rate these graphs are changing, I can't imagine that it will be that long," Ian said, looking contemplatively at the images in front of them.

"Based on the Doctors' calculations, we _should _be ready soon," Serena said, smiling in contemplation as she studied the readings. "Just give it a few more minutes, and we'll be ready to set up that forcefield and trace the disruptions back to their source..."

"The only question is whether what power we acquire this way will be enough," Romana said, her expression grim as she looked at the images before her. "Rift energy of this nature is notoriously unstable; the fact that we're using it to essentially hold itself away from this city could have very unpredictable consequences in the long run..."

"Any more unpredictable than what they'd be if you left this thing alone?" Claire asked, looking at Romana with a pointed stare. "No offence, but unless you've come up with a better plan in the last few minutes than this one-"

Before Claire could finish her sentence, alarms suddenly started blaring around the hub as the readouts on the screen changed, the graphs shifting from displaying a rapidly-rising blue to a fluctuating level of orange. As though on cue, Serena and Romana- the only two companions present with a serious hope of understanding the equations and technology they were dealing with- hurried over to examine some of the computer screens around Tosh's main workstation, rapidly scanning the displays with a speed that would have amazed anyone who didn't know what the two women were.

"Something's wrong!" Serena said, looking anxiously over at the other companions after a few moments of analysis. "The readings have changed; it's as though something's _pulling _the rift energy away through the Hub-"

"And sending it somewhere else!" Toshiko finished, looking in shock at the readings in front of her, rapidly tapping at her keyboard as she tried to stop what was happening in front of her.

"Sending it somewhere else?" the Brigadier said, looking over at Toshiko in shock. "Can we track where it's being sent to?"

"I don't know; the TARDISes are the ones actually sending it somewhere-!" the Japanese woman began.

"The TARDISes?" Jo said, looking at her new friend in sudden horror. "As in... whoever's responsible knows how to control a TARDIS?"

The horrified expressions spreading across the faces of the companions made it clear that they were considering the implications of that statement, but they barely had time to process the twist before Compassion suddenly reeled backwards, her mouth opening in horror as she spread her arms and vanished right in front of them, only a sudden wheezing gasp to indicate the reason for her departure.

"What the _Hell_?" Claire said, staring in confusion at where her fellow redhead had been only moments ago. "How'd she _do _that-?"

"_NO_!" Tosh yelled, her voice increasing in volume as she stared at the screen. Looking at the screen herself, Martha initially couldn't determine the cause of the other woman's panic, but then she noticed the dots indicating the TARDISes around Cardiff vanishing from the map and a horrible possible explanation hit her.

"Oh no..." she said, pulling out her phone and dialling the Doctor's mobile number, her horror only increasing when she heard nothing but a faint beeping informing her that the Doctor's number couldn't be reached; considering the circumstances where she could receive a call were ones that would be considered impossible in most circumstances, the implication that the Doctor was somewhere she couldn't reach him were far from encouraging.

"Uh..." Fitz began, looking uncertainly over at Martha. "Am I just panicking, or is this starting to look a lot like a trap?"

"_Look_!" Rose suddenly yelled before Martha could answer Fitz's question, pointing up at the roof in shock, her obvious terror such a contrast to her confident attitude as Mrs Saxon that it was easy for Martha to forget what Rose would do to her in a timeline that would never be...

Looking up, the companions briefly glimpsed what could only be described as a triangular ripple in the air before it suddenly descended down towards the group of companions, splitting in to three slightly smaller ripples that hit the floor and surrounded Romana, Susan and Serena. Leela, Barbara and Martha tried to grab the three of them, but whatever the ripple was had created a barrier around them, with the three selected victims vanishing before anyone could reach them just as Toshiko was able to start a scan.

"What... what _was _that?" Amy asked, staring at the now-vacated areas where their new friends had just been standing.

"A timescoop," the Brigadier said, his expression grim as he looked at the others. "Whoever or whatever was just responsible, they were using a timescoop."

"A what?" Donna asked, looking sharply over at the old soldier.

"It was a device that was used by the Doctor's people in their distant past, Miss Noble," the Brigadier explained. "In the past, the Time Lords used it to take particularly violent races out of time and space and relocate them into an area of Gallifrey known as the Death Zone so that they could battle each other for the amusement of the old Time Lords."

"Like... time-travelling gladiators?" Barbara asked, her historical training seizing on the most apt scenario for a comparison.

"Essentially, yes, save for the fact that these 'gladiators' did not _choose _to fight in the Death Zone, Miss Wright," the Brigadier said, nodding briefly at Barbara before he continued his explanation. "They abandoned that practise centuries ago, but some years ago the Doctor's first five incarnations- including myself, Miss Foreman, and three others- were captured by a Timescoop and taken to the Death Zone as part of another Time Lord's plan to acquire a secret hidden in the Death Zone."

"Am I the only one not liking the picture we're getting here?" Owen asked, shrugging as the rest of the group turned to look at him inquiringly. "Well, something that can control TARDISes, something that can control some old piece of Time Lord technology... considering how little we've heard of that lot before now, the evidence isn't exactly painting an encouraging picture."

"You think that a _Time Lord_ did this?" Martha asked, her mind flashing to the Master as she exchanged a panicked glance with Jack; they might know why that particular option wasn't a likely explanation, but that didn't mean they wanted to share something so personal without the Doctor's permission...

"Hold on; that doesn't explain how anything could just... _bypass _our security systems without setting off any alarms!" Tosh suddenly protested, looking desperately between her colleagues. "I mean, they probably wouldn't stop something used by the Time Lords- if they could make something like the TARDIS, our own resources might delay an attack from them at best-, but we should have received _some _kind of warning before Compassion vanished or that Timescoop appeared-"

"You would have done normally," a Welsh-accented voice suddenly said, "but _I _turned the alarm systems off before you could receive that message."

"_Ianto_?" Jack said, spinning around to look at the younger man in shock, Ianto standing nonchalantly alongside a computer in another part of the Hub. "How-?"

"Reconfigured everything from here to turn the alarms off so that I could do my job," Ianto replied, patting the computer in front of him with a nonchalant smile. "I _do _know how to use a computer, after all, or aren't you forgetting who always cleaned up your messes?"

"But how _could _you-?" Jack began, a look of near-utter devastation on the immortal captain's face at this new discovery.

"Oh, this isn't Ianto Jones, Captain Harkness," an unfamiliar voice said from the man's mouth, before his appearance seemed to momentarily blur and shift into the form of a red-headed woman who looked exactly like one of the missing members of their group.

"_Compassion_?" Fitz yelled, staring at his fellow/former companion in horror; Martha barely had time to remind herself that, as a sentient TARDIS, Compassion must have a working chameleon circuit as well as the ability to travel in time. "But-"

"I have control of this slave now, Mr Krenier," the male voice said from Compassion's lips, looking scornfully over at Fitz. "Ianto Jones was... generous enough to provide us with access to his appearance and knowledge when we arrived here- what better way to infiltrate you, after all?-, but I'm afraid he can't be allowed to share his experience of me with the rest of you, so we'll just be off now."

"NO!" Jack yelled, charging towards the woman that had once been Ianto, only for Compassion- the future Compassion- to vanish with the kind of instantaneous speed that Martha knew from the Doctor's tales was only possible when pushing a TARDIS to its limit.

_This is _not _good_... Martha thought to herself, looking around the room in growing horror as she processed what had just happened.

Something- or someone; maybe even several some_ones_- with detailed knowledge of Time Lord technology and some kind of knowledge of the Doctor, had just set up a carefully calculated and highly elaborate trap to lure all ten Doctors into the same location in time and space, and had just succeeded in not only capturing them, but also taken their TARDISes into the bargain, _and _had control of the most advanced surviving TARDIS in existence...

But what kind of enemy could fit _that _description?

* * *

As he blinked his eyes open, the Doctor momentarily didn't recognise where he was- he'd been in Compassion a few minutes ago, hadn't he?-, but then the memory of something triggering Compassion's dematerialisation systems by remote came back to him, and the obvious possible explanations for the sudden relocation came to him. Quickly getting to his feet, he glanced around at his surroundings, revealing that he was standing in a room with a disturbingly familiar design on the walls, with his past nine selves regaining consciousness around him, along with the equally-worrying sight of Susan, Serena and Romana lying slightly off to the side, just next to the six police boxes that had been essentially shoved into the corner.

The Doctor wasn't sure if he should be relieved or concerned that whoever had done this had managed to prevent the TARDISes merging like they usually did when in proximity to each other; it might deprive them of the inconvenience of having to temporally separate their ships when this was all over, but it reflected a worrying level of control...

Then he saw Compassion lying slumped in the centre of the small pile of police boxes, and his concern shifted to fear; capturing his TARDIS was comparatively straightforward if you know what you were doing- even if he didn't know _how _someone could know what to do in this new world-, but how could anyone capture Compassion?

"Ah, you're awake," a voice said, a mocking tone to its voice as the Doctor spun around, his eyes widening in horror at the figure standing at the entrance to the room that had been previously concealed by the roundelled pattern of the walls.

"Oh no..." he said, eyes widening in horror as he took in the other man's familiar long black robe and weathered face with its cold stare.

"Who in the universe-?" the Second Doctor began as the younger Doctors looked at the man before them, the first five Doctors in confusion while the other five assumed expressions of horrified realisation.

"NO!" the Doctor yelled, interrupting his second incarnation as he walked forward, grabbing the other man by the robes and hauling him upwards off his feet without even thinking about it.

"Now then, Doctor," the man said, grinning down at the Time Lord, "is that any way to treat-?"

"You're _dead_!" the Doctor yelled, sick with rage and grief at the sight of the being before him; one of the few consolations of Gallifrey being gone was the knowledge that the man before him would never exist, and now this... _thing_... had survived when so many better people had been lost? "You're _dead_! WE KILLED YOU!"

"You _negated _me," the man replied, smirking grimly at the Doctor. "But we both know that what is erased still exists-"

"NO!" the Doctor yelled, hurling the man through the doors that he had just walked through, only for his horror to grow as he took in the sight that awaited him on the other side.

As his other selves gathered around him, with Susan, Serena and Romana behind them- Compassion still seemed to be unconscious from whatever had happened to her; he'd have to look at her once he had a second to spare-, the Doctor couldn't decide what terrified him more; the tall man with short dark hair in robes of a deep red carrying a long staff and wearing a metal glove, the man standing alongside him in the distinctive gold mask and gauntlets with a long blue robe, the man in the 'chair' with one arm and a black leather jacket with a distinctive single blue 'eye' in the middle of his forehead, or the small army of creatures gathered in the hall behind the first four men in a very familiar shape.

Seeing any one of these four men would be terrifying, but seeing them all together, and with _those _things behind them...

"Oh my word..." the Second Doctor said, his eyes wide in horror as he took in the creatures before them.

"Daleks?" the First Doctor said, raising an eyebrow as he took in the large creatures behind the four men facing them.

"Omega?" the Third Doctor said, his gaze fixed on the man in the mask.

"Davros?" the Fourth Doctor said, looking at the one-armed man in horrified disgust.

"_Rassilon_?" the Eighth Doctor said, squinting slightly at the man with the staff as though to confirm it was the Time Lord in question.

"_VALEYARD_?" the Seventh said, staring in horror at the man in the black robe, smiling mockingly at the Doctors as he got to his feet.

"Hello, Doctors," he said, grinning at the Time Lords with a casual smile as though he wasn't defying every rule of time just by standing there. "A pleasure to see you again."

"But... but _how_?" the Sixth Doctor protested, staring at him in shock. "How could you _do _something like this?"

"Well," the Valeyard said, smiling nonchalantly at the Doctor he'd originally encountered, "among other things, I _did _have this little 'double agent'..."

As the Doctors turned to look in the direction that the Valeyard indicated, their eyes widened in momentary confusion at the sight of Ianto Jones walking through the mass of Daleks around them, but that confusion shifted when Ianto suddenly transformed into a red-headed woman right in front of them, a pained expression on her face as though she was straining against something that none of them could see.

"Compassion?" the Eighth Doctor said, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of his current TARDIS.

"You- you enslaved _Compassion_?" the Doctor said, looking in horror at the Valeyard. "But... how didn't we realise it earlier?"

"We did," the Ninth Doctor's distinctive Northern accent said, the Doctor's horror at the implications of that statement only growing when he turned around and saw his immediate predecessor casually walking towards the group of people in front of them. "Or at least, _I _did."

The Doctor couldn't believe it.

He'd known since his epiphany on the _Valiant _that he'd had problems in this life, but the idea that he was so far gone that he'd betray _himselves_...

"But _how_...?" he began, looking desperately at his past self before a more relevant question came to him. "And _why_? Why would you do this?"

"As for how- which I'm assuming refers to the fact that none of you noticed Compassion posing as Mr Jones earlier-, the Edwardian gent didn't know there was any reason to look and you were too caught up with your latest ape," the Ninth Doctor said as he glared at his next self (Only the knowledge that his other self had several issues that he wasn't _really _dealing with in this life stopped the Doctor from instinctively trying to attack him; his companions were _not _'stupid apes', and the Doctor had no right to vent against them because he was feeling angry at the rest of the universe right now). "And regarding why..."

He took a deep breath for a moment, looking at the other Time Lords with a solemn glare about his stance, before he spoke once more. "This is the only way to get back everything we lost."

"What we lost?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking in indignant confusion at his future incarnation. "What could be worth betraying _yourself_?"

As the Ninth Doctor looked at his past selves, the Doctor knew what his immediate past self was about to say before the words had even passed his lips.

"Saving Gallifrey."

* * *

AN 2: Well, there you have it; the villains are revealed, and who was expecting _those _guys to be behind it all?

As for what their plan is...

Well, I can't give away all my secrets at once, can I?


	37. Salvation Through Destruction

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Reference to my story "Filling in the Blanks" regarding the circumstances of the Eighth Doctor's regeneration; reading it isn't essential, but I felt that clarification would be appreciated

AN 2: Hope everyone likes this; working out how the conversation between the Doctors and their enemies go was _not _easy...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"_Great_..." Fitz groaned, staring at the empty areas where the Doctors and the three Time Ladies had been standing as he slumped against the wall. "It's official; we're screwed."

"What do you mean?" Tosh said, looking at him curiously.

"Uh, did you just miss the part where all our TARDISes and _every _Time Lord here just vanished?" Fitz asked, looking at the woman sitting in front of the computer with what Martha could only describe as frustrated panic. "Even if we knew where they'd gone, we've got no way of getting there-!"

"Not _every _TARDIS is gone," Tosh interrupted, smiling slightly at Fitz as she pointed upwards with one hand. "We still have the one just above us."

"What-?!" Martha began, before she snapped her fingers in realisation and pointed at Klein with a smile, her issues with the Nazi doctor temporarily forgotten. "Of _course_; that's the TARDIS of _your _Doctor!"

"Which is _not _the same ship as the other TARDISes, and was therefore missed by whatever took them from us..." Klein said, nodding in a manner that Martha almost wished she could think of as anything other than condescending, as though she was a teacher complimenting a child for coming to the right conclusion; only the fact that she didn't particularly like Klein anyway made it easier to ignore that issue and focus on what was important.

"Uh... I hate to sound like I'm deliberately bringing the mood down, but didn't whoever was responsible for this take away all of our potential TARDIS pilots?" Ian asked, looking around at the other companions. "I mean, the Doctor told me some of the essential details about how our TARDIS works, but I'm fairly sure that _I _couldn't pilot the ship on my own, and from what you're saying the only TARDIS available to us is a bit more advanced and therefore probably more complicated than that one..."

"As much as I... hate to admit it, you have a point, Mr Chesterton," Klein said, nodding briefly at Ian in acknowledgement of his statement, despite the slight expression of distaste that crossed her face at the idea of admitting that someone else in their current group could make a point that she would agree with. "I have... some experience in piloting the Doctor's ship, but the TARDIS above us was significantly beyond my own skills-"

"Well, it's a good thing we're not relying on _your _skills to do it," Donna interjected, glaring briefly at Klein before she looked over at the other companions. "We're relying on _our _skills."

"Our- you mean _all _of us?" Rose asked, looking at Donna in surprise. "You're suggesting that _we_-?"

"Pool our knowledge and experiences with the Doctor to try and pilot the TARDIS above us by working together?" the Brigadier finished, nodding thoughtfully at the young woman. "A challenging prospect, I admit, Miss Tyler, but one that I am confident that we are up to."

"And what makes you think that?" Klein asked, looking back at the Brigadier.

"Because, Doctor Klein," the Brigadier said, as he turned to stare firmly at the Nazi scientist, "I have known the Doctor for a very long time, in a great deal of the bodies that we have witnessed here, and of the few things that have always been constant about him, one of them is in his ability to select companions who will become the best that they can possibly be. We may not know how to operate the TARDIS above us completely on our own, but I can at least be certain that, if we have some time to put everything together, we _will _be able to put that information together in a manner that will allow us to control it properly."

"You really think that we can do that?" Klein asked, looking sceptically at the Brigadier. "Just... pool our resources and-"

"We have to _try_," Claire said, looking resolutely at Klein. "I don't know about whatever you might have picked up from the Doctor, but I've only just _met _him and I know we shouldn't quit that quickly!"

"Exactly!" Martha said, slamming her hand firmly against the desk in front of her as she looked at the group of companions around her. "The Doctor has saved us all so many times over the centuries; we are _not _going to fail him now that it's our turn to save him! Some of you have known him for longer than I have, some of you have barely met him, and there are others who... well, OK, maybe just one or two... who don't particularly like him, but none of that matters right now; what _is _important is that we _have _to find him before whatever we're up against decides to..."

She trailed off, not even wanting to voice the worst-case-scenario that they could be facing, but everyone present knew what she wasn't saying; if they didn't act quickly, it was highly possible that whoever was responsible for the Doctors' abductions would do something _highly _unpleasant to them.

Martha might want to believe that whoever they were up against would be sane enough to recognise that the consequences of killing the Doctor's past selves would be too unpredictable for them to take that kind of chance, but considering that they were up against someone crazy enough to bring the Doctors together in the first place...

Right now, her best chance was to hope that their unknown enemies would just want to imprison the Doctors for some reason...

Martha shook her head; what their enemies wanted with the Doctor wasn't important right now, particularly since everyone here would work to ensure that they never had a chance to complete it.

The small army of companions they'd gathered here _would _get him back.

There were too many people working towards that goal for Martha to think otherwise.

The alternative was impossible to consider...

* * *

"Saving Gallifrey?" Romana repeated, looking at the Ninth Doctor in horrified confusion at the implications of his last statement before she turned to look at the oldest Doctor present. "Doctor, what is he talking about?"

"Oh, he didn't tell you?" the Valeyard asked, looking at Romana with a mocking smirk. "I'm disappointed, but I suppose I should expect it of my old weakness; he never could face-"

"Look, before we do anything else here, can you just do me one _small _favour and let Ianto Jones out of Compassion?" the Doctor asked glaring over at where the sentient TARDIS stood in one corner; it might be a minor detail, but his willingness to recognise the minor details was one of the qualities that separated him from this version of him in the first place. "You don't need him any more, and I'm fairly certain keeping him locked up in there is-"

The Doctor's request was cut short as the Valeyard snapped his fingers and Compassion opened out into her familiar door shape, followed by Ianto's suit-clad form falling out of the sentient time-ship and hitting the ground with a thud. The Fifth Doctor and Susan hurried over to help him to his feet, each nothing that he seemed to be relatively unharmed apart from feeling slightly thinner than was completely healthy.

"As you requested, Ianto Jones," the Valeyard said, smirking dismissively at his other selves. "Now we're all here-"

"On that topic, would you mind telling us how _you _can be here?" the Eighth Doctor interjected, staring firmly at his other self despite his slight fear at the prospect of what he was facing. "After all, the last time you fought us... well, I'm fairly sure we saw you die?"

"Oh, I did more than die, Doctor," the Valeyard replied, smiling slightly at his other self. "After all, when you destroyed me in London, you did more than merely kill me; you destroyed what existing potential of existence I possessed at this time-"

"I'm sorry, but I think that at least half of us seem to be missing something here; who _is _this man?" the Third Doctor asked, looking at the later Doctors in confusion.

"And who- or should I say _what_-, precisely, is _that_?" the First Doctor asked, indicating Davros with his stick.

"'That'," the Fourth Doctor said, looking coldly at the indicated individual, "is Davros, the Kaled who created the Mark Three Travel Machines that we know as the Daleks, as a means of transporting the mutations that his projections indicated his race would become after centuries of radioactive warfare."

"I... see," the First Doctor said, staring grimly at Davros with an air of contempt that made it clear that he thoroughly disapproved of the very concept of what Davros had done despite his own limited experience with the Daleks to date.

"And that man?" the Second Doctor asked, looking grimly at the Valeyard.

"He's... us," the Seventh Doctor explained, looking solemnly at his five youngest selves after a brief glance at his immediate past and three future selves culminated in him being unofficially 'nominated' to speak for them.

"He's what?" the Fifth Doctor asked, looking sharply over his future incarnation as though wanting to confirm he'd heard him correctly.

"He's us," the Sixth Doctor explained grimly. "The manifestation of our own dark nature, created in our future- somewhere between our twelfth and final incarnations, according to the information I heard at the time-, and back in our pasts to ensure our own destruction."

"And to ensure my own existence, Doctor," the Valeyard said, staring solemnly at them. "After all, it is only natural that I should want to exist now that I have been granted that particular gift..."

"We should have realised who was behind this all the moment we pooled our resources," the Seventh Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he stared at the figure before them, clutching his umbrella tightly as though preparing to use it against his foes as a weapon. "Who else would hate us enough to risk such an extensive and outrageous plan to attack us?"

"Outrageous?" the Valeyard said, looking mockingly at the Doctor who'd defeated him during his last encounter with them.

"An unholy alliance of Time Lord and Dalek, bringing together some of our most dangerous individual enemies, to say nothing of working with the race we sacrificed _everything_ to stop?" the Doctor said, before he looked scathingly over at his immediate predecessor. "The only thing madder than him thinking this is a good idea is the thought that you'd be a part of it."

"I wasn't expecting the Daleks- I thought it was just him-, but that doesn't _matter _right now," the Ninth Doctor said, a slightly pleading edge to his voice as he briefly indicated the Valeyard before he looked more directly at his future self. "You have to understand; this is the only way to save Gallifrey-"

"Why does Gallifrey need _saving_?" Serena asked, looking in shaken confusion between her short Doctor and the Doctor in the leather jacket. "What _happened_?"

"There was a war," the Ninth Doctor said, grimly looking at his other selves and their assorted remaining companions. "The last great Time War... Time Lords and Daleks, with the fate of creation hanging in the balance..."

He sighed and stood in silence for a moment, pain and anguish in his eyes at the memories he was reliving, until he focused his glare firmly on his predecessor. "And then _he _cut it all short by destroying Gallifrey."

"I _what_?" the Eighth Doctor said, looking at his next incarnation in horror. "I would _never_-!"

"You didn't have a choice," the Doctor interrupted, looking over at his eighth self with as much comfort as he could master; he'd had to deal with a great deal of anger after his eighth regeneration, both at what his previous self had done and at the fact that he'd been left to cope with the guilt and grief inspired by those memories after his regeneration while trying to save the Nestene feeding planets, but he'd moved past it since his last regeneration, and was better able to accept what his prior self had done. "The war was about to begin, the enemy were winning, and the Time Lords' only hope would have been to pre-empt their pre-emptive strike by travelling back in time to start the war before the other side started it; you destroyed Gallifrey because the only other option was to allow the Time Lords to wage a war that would dehumanise them all to the point of becoming monsters that all evidence suggested we couldn't win anyway-"

"We _would _have won!" Rassilon proclaimed, stepping forward to glare at the Doctor. "We are _Time Lords_-!"

"Which just means that we're stronger than most races," the Sixth Doctor interrupted, looking at Rassilon with a solemn but resolute glare. "We are not gods, Rassilon; we're very good at what we do, but we're not indestructible."

"Add in the fact that we don't exactly have any kind of long-standing army available to us in the first place, and I can see several factors that could result in us losing a war like that," the Fifth Doctor said, the pain in his eyes the only indication of how difficult it was for him to discuss that particular topic, before he shook her head and looked at the Valeyard once more. "And we can discuss that issue later; for the moment, could those of us who know please explain why it's such a shock to see this... Valeyard alive?"

"Because I killed him," the Seventh Doctor said, staring grimly at the Valeyard.

"_You _killed him?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking sharply over at his successor. "_I'm _the one who-"

"He retreated into the body of the Keeper of the Matrix after your confrontation with him," the Seventh Doctor interjected, his attention focused on the Valeyard as he spoke. "He attempted to use his position to harness the power of the Dark Matrix to create a new body for himself, but that wasn't the extent of his crimes; he also used its influence to try and corrupt us."

"Corrupt us?" the Fourth Doctor repeated, looking over at his future self in shock. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't remember it happening myself- whatever he was doing to Time with the Dark Matrix operated on a level far beyond most temporal theories that we know of; he was somehow able to preserve parts of our history to remain unaltered while changing others-, but apparently, thanks to his influence, you were provoked into destroying the Daleks during your first encounter with Davros," the Seventh Doctor said, looking over at his younger self.

"I... I was?" the Fourth Doctor said, looking in horror at the Valeyard, the scarf-wearing Doctor's usually jovial expression replaced by one of horror at this news.

"Fascinating," Davros said, looking at the Fourth Doctor with a mocking smile. "Even with me standing here, with my Daleks around me, you _still _find yourself unable to contemplate such an action..."

"_No_," the Fourth Doctor said, looking sharply up at Davros, shock replaced by cold certainty as he glared at the other man. "I acknowledge that I am capable of such an atrocity, Davros; what makes me better than you is the fact that I will _not _resort to genocide in order to enforce my views!"

"And that's why I had to do this," the Ninth Doctor said, glaring at his past self. "Because you were too _goody-goody _to do what had to be done-"

"What was done then is done," Rassilon interjected, holding up a hand as he glared at the Ninth Doctor in a warning manner. "What happened then is not important; we are where and what we are, and that is what matters."

"And what exactly are _you _now, Valeyard?" the Seventh Doctor asked, bringing their conversation back to focus on their darker self. "As I recall, you were destroyed when your TARDIS explored after the Dark Matrix tried to escape; how could you survive?"

"I didn't," the Valeyard replied.

"Excuse me?" the Second Doctor said, looking at the other Time Lord in confusion. "You... _did _die?"

"With the destruction of my corporeal fom and my TARDIS, my already-tenuous timeline was severed and I was banished to the non-existence of the Void," the Valeyard replied, staring at the Doctors. "Imagine it... conscious nothingness... the black void all around you... aware of your existence but unable to take any kind of action... your body nothing but a memory... nowhere to go, no hope of reprieve..."

He paused for a moment, giving them a chance to process his description, before he smiled mockingly over at the Doctor. "Until a crack in the Void appeared, as something that had once passed through it had no longer done so..."

"What...?" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in horrified realisation. "_Rose_!"

"Rose?" the Ninth Doctor repeated, looking at his future self in sudden shock. "What about her?"

"Trapped in another universe, until a daring experiment in cross-dimensional travel brought her back to this one," the Valeyard said, smirking at the thought as he took in the horror on the Doctor's face. "He had to reverse it, of course- there were other factors to consider aside from Miss Tyler's return to this universe, after all-, but while he could erase her trip from history in this universe and the one she was taken from, he _couldn't_ erase the rift she created in the Void."

"And you... escaped through that?" the First Doctor said, looking sceptically at the Valeyard. "Through a tear in something that essentially doesn't exist?"

"You'll learn soon enough that just because we think something doesn't exist doesn't necessarily mean that it can't exist," the Third Doctor said, smiling briefly over at his first incarnation before turning his attention back to the Valeyard. "But... would you even _exist_? When Omega was trapped in the realm of anti-matter, his body eventually collapsed; I find it hard to imagine that physical entities could last for long in the Void..."

"Oh, they couldn't," the Valeyard said, smiling as he glanced down at his body with a smile. "But fortunately, I was able to find a suitable host in our slave over there..."

"Slave...?" the Doctor repeated in confusion, only to trail off as he realised what the Valeyard was talking about. "You possessed Nivet?"

"Nivet?" the Eighth Doctor repeated.

"A technician from Gallifrey; Compassion took him with her after Gallifrey's destruction to help keep her systems in working order in the absence of the Eye of Harmony while you and Fitz started travelling in... another ship," the Doctor explained- getting into the specifics of how he'd reacquired the TARDIS after the Avalon incident opened up far too many complications-, before he focused his attention back on the Valeyard. "So, let me guess; you possessed Nivet, force-regenerated him into a body that resembled your own, and then set about contacting some of our most powerful adversaries?"

"Rassilon is an _adversary_?" the Fifth Doctor said, looking curiously over at the oldest Doctor. "I know he's been ambiguously portrayed in history-"

"He tried to turn me into his assassin against a race who would have evolved to replace the Time Lords simply because _he _didn't like the fact that the world had to change around him," the Eighth Doctor bluntly informed his past self.

"And that's not even the extent of his schemes," the Doctor said, looking coldly at Rassilon (His eighth self would actually be experiencing the timeline where the Faction would be responsible for his decision to destroy Gallifrey, but since the universe remembered the timeline where the Daleks were responsible and his past self would forget this event anyway it was easier to focus on the new memory of the war that would have happened in the vision Compassion had given him rather than the original one). "When he was recovered and taken back to this universe to help lead us in our new war, his last great plan for our survival was to trigger the 'final sanction' and rip the Time Vortex apart-"

"_WHAT_?" Romana, Serena and Susan yelled virtually simultaneously, the three Time Ladies turning to look at Rassilon in shock.

"You... were going to destroy _everything_?" Romana asked, looking in outrage and disgust at Rassilon. "We were losing a war, and your solution was to end the entire _universe_ so that... what; our _Enemy _couldn't have it?"

"It was all for _us_!" Rassilon proclaimed. "The Enemy would have fallen, but the Time Lords would ascend to a level of consciousness as the vortex collapsed-"

"Excuse me?" the First Doctor said, glaring with new intensity at Rassilon. "You would have destroyed the _entire universe_... to save _one _race?"

"And that's why I had to make my choice," the Doctor said, looking grimly back at Rassilon. "He considered the sacrifice of the universe a _fair _exchange if it meant that the Time Lords would survive; I didn't have a choice-"

"Of course you did," Rassilon said, staring coldly at the Doctor. "You simply chose-"

"We are _Time _Lords, Rassilon; we _defend _time, and your plan called for its complete destruction!" the Doctor yelled, glaring at the first Time Lord with cold resolve. "And now you're going to try and undo it by working _with _the race that drove me that far?"

"You are saying that the _Daleks _pushed us to that point?" the First Doctor said, looking incredulously over at his oldest self; the Doctor almost wished that he could remember how it felt to be so young and comparatively innocent, believing that all he needed to do was travel before he understood the scale of the evil that he would discover in his journeys, but those days were long gone and only the facts remained in his mind. "They were dangerous, I grant you, but-"

"We became far more than just _dangerous_, Doctor," Davros said, looking mockingly at the old man he'd never met before now. "We were the most powerful race in the cosmos-"

"Which doesn't explain why you're working _together _now," the Doctor interrupted, looking in frustration at the Daleks' creator even as he jerked his head towards Rassilon and Omega. "I don't deny that you've put your ego aside in the past when you were dealing with high enough stakes, but what in the _Vortex _could possess you to work with the founders of Time Lord society after you tried to destroy us?"

"A... 'tit for tat', I believe is the appropriate description of our arrangement?" Davros said, smiling slightly at the Doctors. "They provide the knowledge, and I provide the equipment for our... endeavour."

"Which is?" the Seventh Doctor asked, an apprehensive edge in his voice that reflected the feelings of all the other Doctors about this new revelation.

"Saving Gallifrey and Skaro from destruction," Omega replied, looking like he was smiling under his mask.

"How- the _Timescoop_?" the Sixth Doctor said, answering his own question in horror.

"You're going to use a Timescoop to _remove _Gallifrey from the moment of its own destruction?" the Seventh Doctor said, looking at Rassilon in horror. "But you don't have the power-"

"We are working on that particular shortcoming," Omega informed them. "We are also working on a means of preserving the timeline; if we transfer two other planets back in time at the same moment that we remove Gallifrey and Skaro from the moments of their destruction..."

He smirked slightly as he looked at the Doctors. "I feel that the scenario described should pacify your concerns about us tampering with the timeline?"

"Except for the fact that you can't guarantee which planets will be replaced," the Third Doctor said coldly.

"They can't?" Susan asked, looking at her grandfather's third self in confusion. "But-"

"We're talking about accessing a planet 'protected' by a dimensional ripple created at the moment of its own destruction," the Doctor explained. "Right now, _nothing _can reach Gallifrey from our present, just as nothing from Gallifrey prior to its destruction can access history as it is; our current interaction is only possible because we're relatively 'free' from the influence of Gallifrey's timeline after we've spent so much time away from it, but that won't allow him to access Gallifrey itself."

"But what does- oh," Serena said, realising the implications of the Doctor's news before she could finish her question. "You're saying that, even if they can... _reach _Gallifrey..."

"They'll have to devote all of their processing power to punching through the barrier around Gallifrey's spatial-temporal coordinates, particularly not when they're trying to get Skaro to safety at the same time," the Second Doctor finished for the benefit of his new companion, a subtle edge of horror in his voice the only indication of how he really felt about the topic that he was discussing. "Which means that they won't be able to choose which planets will be 'selected' to replace Gallifrey and Skaro when they initiate the swap, which means that two innocent, randomly-selected planets, will _die _so that they can achieve their goals-!"

"Considering the worlds that we're attempting to rescue, Doctor, I think the universe can afford to spare two planets," Omega said, smirking at the Doctor once again.

"But... if you had all this planned, why did you need Greel and Chen?" the Sixth Doctor asked, looking at their enemies in confusion. "Why take the risk of bringing back two of the most unstable human geniuses in existence to... _mine _for you?"

"They were needed to solve the power requirement problem," the Valeyard replied, with the same frustratingly cool manner that had so disturbed the Doctors who knew him during the trial that served as their original 'meeting' (As much as you could be said to have met with yourself). "Finding a suitable star to detonate to create a new Eye of Harmony would take too much time and attract too much attention- the resources required to harness something that powerful aren't exactly something that could be missed by someone who knew what they were looking at-, so, when I remembered the power potential offered by the anti-matter harvested from Zeta Minor on our second trip to the planet, I decided to use Greel's 'out-of-the-box' thinking to find new ways of harnessing its power to its fullest extent, providing us with a new means of operating the Timescoop in the absence of the Eye of Harmony so long as we keep a careful eye on it."

"And _that's _why you recognised the TARDIS you found in Greel's camp," the Seventh Doctor said, looking over at the Fifth and Sixth Doctors as he reflected on their memories of their return to Zeta Minor. "It _was _our TARDIS, but it's the version that was destroyed when the Valeyard lost control of the Dark Matrix..."

"Damaged, yes, but not destroyed," the Valeyard corrected, smirking over at the Doctor's question. "With some help from the Trickster- there will be some chaos if our plans succeed, which was enough to attract his interest-, we were able to recover Greel and Chen from the moments of their deaths and replace them with copies, and then it was a relatively simple matter to direct Greel to the remnants of my TARDIS and use what power was left in its systems to take him into the future; Chen, of course, travelled in a Dalek time capsule."

"On that topic, saving Greel made a... _sort _of sense- he's twisted, but he has _some _experience with technology like that-, but what about Chen?" the Fifth Doctor asked. "What purpose did bringing _him _back serve?"

"He served as a... a coordinator is the best term, really," the Valeyard replied. "Greel was a genius, but his tactical abilities were limited, to say nothing of his inexperience with Daleks; Chen served as a convenient proxy to control the Daleks' activities there when Davros's services were required here."

"And what about those dark matter bombs that drew me, me and me together?" the Second Doctor asked. "Why did you do that?"

"A test to weaken the reality barriers," the Valeyard clarified with a shrug. "Risky, of course, but considering the benefits if we succeed, I'm certain that we can straighten out any side-effects once the Timescoop has completed its purpose and restored Gallifrey to us."

"But... hold on, you can't _do _that any more!" the Fifth Doctor protested. "We _destroyed _the mining facility you'd established-!"

"But you didn't destroy the anti-matter we'd already acquired and taken from the planet," Omega replied. "It's not as much power as we'd hoped to harness, of course, but it should be enough to get the job done; we can harness enough additional power from your TARDISes while they're helping us calculate the necessary additional details."

"Our TARDISes...?" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in realisation. "You mean you went to all the effort of bringing us together because you didn't have enough _processing power_?"

"You're using our ships to make the necessary calculations to penetrate the barriers around Gallifrey's history?" the Eighth Doctor said, looking at the Valeyard incredulously. "With _all _the supercomputers out there-"

"Most of which are either highly unstable personalities, dangerous to access, or have been destroyed over the centuries," the Valeyard said dismissively. "The TARDISes might not be as inventive as some of the systems out there, but when added to the processing power we have here already, they'll work out what we need."

"And you think we'll just _let_-?" the Sixth Doctor began, standing up with a stern glare, only for a Dalek beam to strike him in the legs, leaving him to fall to the ground as the other Doctors looked anxiously at him.

"I don't _want _to harm any of you- what we're attempting will be dangerous enough without introducing more temporal paradoxes into the equation-, but don't mistake a lack of desire for a lack of will," the Valeyard said, glaring at the other Doctors until his expression shifted to a slight smirk. "Your TARDISes are all currently grounded and locked, and there will be Dalek guards outside at all times, so don't think that you can escape; I _do _know every trick you all like to use, after all..."

As though those last words had been a cue, the Valeyard shrugged and turned around to head towards the door to the room, pausing only to look back at the Doctors with a satisfied smirk.

"See you all later," he said, a satisfied tone in his voice that left even the most non-violent Doctors wanting to punch him. "Once I come back, it'll all be over."

With that ominous statement, the Valeyard departed, followed by Rassilon, Omega, Davros and the Daleks, leaving the Ninth Doctor to look solemnly at his other selves.

"You'll thank me for this later," he said at last. "I'm bringing back our home."

"You can't _do _this!" the Doctor yelled, looking desperately at his ninth self. "They're going to destroy-!"

"They're going to _save _it," the Ninth Doctor said, looking back at his next self with a slight hesitation in his manner before he seemed to steel himself and nodded resolutely at his future incarnation. "I can't ignore that."

Before the Doctor could reply to that comment, the Ninth Doctor had turned around and walked out of the room after their other enemies, the door closing behind him with an overly ominous thud. With that sound, the other nine Doctors were left in the large room that was their cell, Susan, Serena, Romana and Ianto the only company that wasn't themselves, their TARDISes standing silently in one corner alongside the two unresponsive Compassions.

The Doctor couldn't remember a time that he'd felt so lost.

To be betrayed by _himself_... a self he remembered _being_...

He'd known that he had problems in that incarnation, but even in his worst nightmares, he'd never imagined that they could become _this _bad...

What were they going to do _now_?


	38. A Lucky Break

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: A complicated chapter, but I feel it was worth the effort; we have a scene coming up soon that I'm REALLY looking forward to writing...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Right then," Jack said, as the various companions stared at the controls of their sole remaining TARDIS- the ship's forebodingly dark interior still didn't entirely comfort Martha, but this wasn't the time to be picky about the conditions they were working in-, "who wants to do what?"

"Well..." Ian said, looking uncertainly at the console, taking in what was in front of him as he tried to find something he recognised from his own Doctor's ship. "This looks like the door control, and this was the fast return switch on the TARDIS I know..."

"The dematerialisation circuit was normally located in here," Jo continued, indicating a particular panel. "The Doctor normally sets coordinates here, but since he could never get us where he was going I can't be certain how to set it now..."

"It's somewhere to start, anyway," Klein said, walking over to the area that Jo had pointed out before Leela suddenly had a knife at her throat.

"_I _will set the coordinates," Leela said, staring firmly at Klein. "I have lived among the Doctor's people for many seasons beyond my usual limit, and have learned at least some things about how to operate their machines; you may have taken knowledge of the TARDIS during your time with the Doctor, but I would not trust you to adhere to our current plans."

"We are all in the same boat here, Miss-" Klein began.

"If the Doctor you are travelling with does not completely trust you, I see no reason why I should do differently," Leela said, shooting a final glare in Klein's direction to make her position clear before turning to look at Tosh. "Where do we go?"

"That's... where it gets a bit trickier," Tosh said, her initially hopeful smile fading as she stared at the screen of the PDA she held in front of her, a concerned frown on her face as she studied the readouts. "I've managed to use the rift sensors to give us an approximate location for the area where the Timescoop took the Doctors- thanks to your own insight I've been able to work on making some improvements to the Hub's sensors to track this kind of activity-, but that still doesn't help me actually _program _this ship to follow it."

"Why not?" Barbara asked, looking inquiringly at Tosh.

"It's... well, I don't know how this ship actually _processes _coordinates," Tosh explained, looking apologetically at the history teacher. "I can calculate the coordinates based on the traditional galactic guide, but if this thing processes coordinates via the elliptical system I'm in a bit of trouble, and then there's the possibility that it calculates coordinates from a completely different starting point than what we're used to anyway..."

"In other words, we're still stuck," Claire said, rolling her eyes in frustration. "Bloody context; it's always a pain in the neck keeping that crap straight..."

"Hold on..." Amy said, looking thoughtfully at the TARDIS console. "Maybe I can..."

Before any of the other companions could react, Amy placed her hand on two flat, circular panels, and suddenly the entire console began to move, the central column moving in its familiar manner as the wheezing sound momentarily filled the room.

"What the-?" Fitz said, looking at the younger woman in confusion.

"That was the telepathic circuits!" Jo said, looking in new understanding at the circles Amy had just touched.

"The what?" Claire asked.

"The Doctor- my Doctor- used them once to send a message to the Time Lords for help," Jo said, before she looked at Amy more thoughtfully. "Did you-?"

"No- at least, I don't think so," Amy replied, shaking her head as she looked at the circuits, the ship already in motion. "I was just... I was thinking about the mission that I was on with the Doctor when we first met you all- I use those circuits to... help us find what we're looking for- and I touched them, and... and then... we started moving..."

"Hold on; are you telling me that you just... _told _the TARDIS to finish whatever you were doing?" Rose asked, looking at the other young woman in frustration. "I mean, maybe whatever you're doing is important, but we've got to save the Doctor; we can't just-!"

"Actually," Tosh said, looking thoughtfully at another screen on the console with a hopeful smile, "according to this, once I run them through the appropriate mapping system- now that I've _seen _how the ship displays coordinates it's easier to work it out-, it _looks _like the coordinates Amy sent the TARDIS to travel to... are the same place as where the Doctors are now."

"Really?" Amy said, looking over at the Japanese computer expert in surprise, a smile on her face at this unexpectedly pleasant news. "You're sure?"

"Looks like it," Jack said, glancing at the screen himself to confirm Tosh's assessment before he looked back at his new friends. "I'm not exactly an expert in TARDIS navigation- been a while since I last actually _travelled _anywhere in this thing, you know-, but I know enough about these systems to know what they're telling me, and Tosh is right; run it through the right mapping system, and this definitely _looks _like the same coordinates for where the Timescoop dropped the Doctors off."

"But... how's that possible?" Barbara asked. "I mean, I know that I don't know what you and... well, _your_ Doctor... are looking for, but what are the odds that it's in the same place that... whoever's behind this... took the Doctors?"

"Precise odds unknown in the absence of information about the nature of the Doctor-Master's search with Mistress Amy," K9 said, after his ear-radars had wiggled for a few moments in the manner they always moved when he was calculating something. "However, consent with Mistress Barbara's prior assessment; odds of the artefact and the Doctor-Master's various selves being in the same place at the same time will be extremely low, exceeding a million to one at an approximate guess without access to precise information about the subject of Mistress Amy's search."

"Well... we have to get lucky some time, right?" Martha said, smiling hopefully at her new friends, stuck for other explanations that she could provide in the face of such a confusing turn of events.

She didn't know how whatever the cricket-wearing Doctor and Amy were looking for could be in the same place as the Doctors, but this wasn't the time to look a gift horse in the mouth; if they had a chance to rescue the Doctor, they _were _going to take it.

"Besides," she said, looking over at her fellow companions with a smile, "good luck aside, we still have at least a couple of advantages."

"We do?" Jo asked, looking curiously at the doctor. "What are they?"

"We have numbers, and we have the element of surprise," Martha replied, looking back at the younger woman with a smile. "Whoever was responsible for this plan probably thought that none of us would be able to use this ship- assuming they even knew it was here-; it's time we showed them that we travel with the Doctor to do more than give him someone to show off to."

"Indeed," the Brigadier said, exchanging a slight smile with Jo Grant as though the two of them were sharing some private joke, before he turned to look at them. "For what it's worth, I know that I only met many of you recently- and some of you don't know me as well as I know you, for various reasons involving the Doctor's nature-, but I am nevertheless confident when I say that, if I had a choice of going into action with any of the men and women I have served with over my long career, I could not pick a better group that the group standing with me today."

"I second that," Jack said, smiling at the old soldier as the other companions nodded their own agreement (Even Klein conceded the point, even if her own nod was slightly hesitant compared to that of the others; Martha decided not to quibble too much about her apparent reluctance to help in favour of focusing on the problem at hand).

Further conversation about their resolution to be there for the Doctor was cut short as the TARDIS's central column finally stopped moving, leaving them looking apprehensively at each other for a few moments before their gazes settled on the door.

"Well," Gwen said, smiling around at the others out of a lack of anything else to do, "shall we?"

"We shall," Leela said, nodding at her teammate before she activated the door switch, opening the console room's exterior doors, leaving them free to depart from the ship and explore their new surroundings.

As she emerged from the TARDIS- which, glancing back as she left the door, seemed to have become some kind of pipe in the room they were standing in; maybe it was meant to look like it was part of the ventilation system or something like that-, Martha smiled in relief at the sight that greeted her and her new friends; the Doctors, Susan, Serena and Romana, kneeling or sitting on the floor while gathered around an unconscious Ianto Jones, with six police boxes standing behind them and two near-identical Compassions standing blankly at attention on either side of the more familiar TARDISes.

"Oh my... _Martha_!" the Doctor said, leaping to his feet as he took in their arrival, hurrying over to embrace her as the other companions hurried over to their respective Doctors; everyone seemed to be relatively unharmed, but Martha quickly noticed that one Doctor appeared to be conspicuous by his absence.

"How did you find us?" the Third Doctor asked, looking curiously at them. "I know that you're all quite capable, but that's not even my TARDIS; how could anyone work out how to pilot-?"

"Actually... even we're not sure about that," Owen said, shrugging uncertainly as he indicated Amy. "Apparently the girl over here was able to tell the ship to find you telepathically because you're in the same place as something she's looking for-"

"It's _here_?" the Fifth Doctor said, looking at Owen in surprise at this news before looking over at Amy. "How-?"

"You _cannot _know about that," the Sixth Doctor said, stepping forward and placing a hand on his past self's shoulder, turning the younger Doctor around to face him as he stared resolutely into the eyes he'd possessed in his last body. "You will find out what it means soon enough in your timeline, but you and Amy have to remain ignorant for the moment; the TARDIS can only erase so much _specific _information, remember?"

The Fifth Doctor looked at his future self in confusion for a moment, but finally nodded and did as the older Doctor had asked, remaining silent despite the questions burning in his eyes at the unintentional hint about his future that he already knew he couldn't follow up.

"So," the Doctor said, looking at his companions with a smile, evidently wanting to prevent anyone asking any questions about that brief confrontation, "now that we're all here-"

"Where's the Doctor?" Rose asked, looking sharply over at him.

"Pardon?" Fitz said, looking back at her in surprise. "We've kind of got a surplus of Doctors here right now-"

"Where's _my _Doctor?" Rose clarified, glaring briefly at Fitz before looking back at the Doctor, her severe stare putting Martha briefly in mind of Rose Saxon before she pushed that thought aside; the slight tremor in Rose's stance was enough to confirm that she still wasn't the version of her that Martha had last met.

"That's... well, you see..." the Second Doctor said, looking awkwardly at Rose.

"He joined our captors," the Doctor said, his voice rushed in a manner that put Martha in mind of patients ripping off a band-aid before it could hurt.

"_WHAT_?!" the other companions said, looking incredulously at the Doctors.

"One of _you_... joined our _enemies_?" the Brigadier said, looking in shock at the Doctor. "Why-?"

"He... had his reasons; let's just say he's still dealing with a lot of things that I've moved past a while back and leave it at that for the moment," the Doctor said, glancing back at his other selves as though seeking their opinion before he turned back to look at the companions with a slight smile, only the warning edge in his eyes making it clear that he wasn't willing to discuss what he'd just told them yet. "Now then, with everyone here, I think it's time we see about getting out of here; Doctor Jones, if you'd be so kind?"

"You mean this?" Martha asked, guessing her boyfriend's train of thought as she pulled out the sonic screwdriver he'd given her for her birthday shortly before they'd rescued Leela.

"Precisely," the Doctor said, pulling out his own screwdriver and holding it out apologetically. "I normally wouldn't ask, but when we were relocated here our enemies deactivated our sonics; if you could just key in the relevant settings...?"

Smiling in understanding, Martha triggered the relevant setting on her own screwdriver- she was still learning all of the things that this device could do, but the Doctor had given her instructions on how to use some of the most essential settings, and recharging equipment was one of them. In a matter of moments, the Doctor's screwdriver was back up and running, prompting him to turn to his other selves as he worked on recharging the screwdrivers of those who had them.

It might be an obvious delaying tactic to avoid discussing the true scale of what they were up against, but Martha wasn't going to blame him for wanting a few moments to think about what he was about to say; the idea of something motivating one of his past selves to betray them had to be difficult...

* * *

AN 2: We move on to a very particular confrontation next chapter that I hope will meet with your approval.

AN 3: To answer the question of those who don't know how Amy was able to find the Doctors, she is a sentient Tracer assigned to find the six segments of the Key to Time, of which she and the Fifth Doctor already possess five; it was revealed in the audio "The Chaos Pool" that Romana became the new disguise of the sixth segment after she regenerated, with the result that Amy was 'homing in' on Romana when she made contact with the TARDIS telepathic circuits, but the Sixth and later Doctors don't want to let the younger Doctors know about that unless it becomes absolutely necessary to try and limit the knowledge that must be erased.


	39. Clash of the Doctors

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Hope this chapter lives up to everyone's expectations; I've been looking forward to writing the confrontation that takes place here for _quite _some time...

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Right then," the Doctor said, smiling as he finished recharging the last screwdriver and looked around at his other selves. "First order of business is for us to get out of here and find out where we are; once we've determined _how _our enemies are going to do what we've learned they're going to do-"

"Which is what, exactly?" Klein asked, looking sharply at the Doctor.

"And talking of questions, _who_ are we actually dealing with here?" Claire asked, looking in confusion at the Doctors. "I mean, who could do something this... well, from what Alistair there told me, this whole 'several-of-you-in-one-place' thing should only hap[pen when things get _really _dangerous, so what are the stakes here?"

As each looked at his other selves for a moment, the Doctors debated the merits of answering their companions' questions versus the merits of silence, before nodding in agreement as the oldest Doctor resolved to answer the question.

"It's a very twisted alliance," the Doctor said, looking grimly over at his assembled friends. "In a nutshell, we're dealing with Rassilon, Omega, and Davros."

"Omega and Rassilon?" the Brigadier said, looking at the Doctors in confusion, as the names met with mixtures of horrified gaps and confused stares as those not already aware of their current enemies either recognised the names or wondered who they were. "I thought they were dead?"

"That's... complicated to explain right now; let's just say that they made it back and leave it at that," the Doctor said, looking over at his other selves. "And you all know that I can't tell you more about that, so don't ask."

"Is there... something about those two that we should know?" Claire asked.

"Basically, they created my peoples' society millennia ago," the Sixth Doctor explained. "Unfortunately, Omega was trapped in an anti-matter universe and went mad from centuries of isolation, and Rassilon..."

"He had certain ideas about our place in the universe that I didn't approve of," the Eighth Doctor said, before he looked over at the Doctor. "Was I-?"

"You weren't wrong," the Doctor said (Even if it hadn't happened to him personally, he'd seen what Rassilon would have done in the Time War if he hadn't done what he'd done to stop it thanks to Compassion; he would _never _accept that what Rassilon had been planning was the only way to end the war). "If you hadn't done that... well, things would have been worse; let's leave it at that."

"So... we're dealing with the two insane founders of your civilisation, and... Davros?" Ian asked, looking at the Doctors for confirmation. "Who's Davros?"

"The man who created the Daleks," the Fourth Doctor said, looking grimly over at his first human companion.

"Oh my... someone actually created those things on _purpose_?" Ian said, looking at the scarf-wearing Doctor incredulously. "I just assumed they stuck something that crude together because they were stuck for options; who'd make that thing on _purpose_?"

"Let's just say that Davros had some twisted ideas about universal peace and leave it at that; it's not really relevant to this situation," the Fifth Doctor said, before he looked over at his oldest present incarnation. "What I don't understand is how those three could ever work together; does he really think that he can control them?"

"He thought that he could control the Dark Matrix itself; compared to that, controlling three insane geniuses would be easy," the Seventh Doctor said grimly.

"And... why would my Doctor join them?" Rose asked. "Did they-?"

"They 'did' nothing to him," Serena said, looking scathingly at Rose. "The Doctor you arrived here with chose to side with our enemies of his own accord and his own free will; there's nothing controlling him, I assure you."

"No..." Rose protested, looking in shock at the Doctor, her head automatically shaking in denial of Serena's statement. "He wouldn't _do _that-"

"I went through a lot before I met you, Rose," the Doctor said, looking grimly at his previous companion. "It would take exceptional circumstances, I grant you, but if someone- anyone- had offered me the chance to undo what had happened to me before now, particularly when it had the support of four of the most intelligent people I've ever met- people who are also fully aware of the consequences of manipulating Time too much-, well..."

He sighed apologetically. "As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, I was a very damaged individual at that point in my lives; I'd been through a great deal."

"What?" the Brigadier asked, looking in confusion at his friend. "What could possibly make _you_-?"

"That's something he'll have to tell you when I get him back," the Doctor said, turning his attention towards the door of the cell as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at it, smiling in satisfaction when it easily slid open; as expected, his enemies might have planned how to contain him, but they hadn't made any plans to accommodate what might happen if he managed to get some help. "Now then, all of you stay here and stay safe; I'm going to find myself."

"You?" the First Doctor said, looking pointedly at him. "Young man, if you think-"

"He's not going to want to be alone with them for any longer than he has to be; even if he wants to help them succeed, his guilt won't let him stay in the same room as them for long," the Doctor said, the haunted expression in his eyes as he looked at Martha making it obvious what he was thinking.

The idea that he was going to have to actually go up against _himself_- not the Valeyard, but a _past _incarnation of himself- because he objected to what he was about to do...

"Wait here," he said, shifting his position to address all of his companions and other selves in a solemn manner. "I'll be locking that door so that only me and me can unlock it from this side; we'll go over the situation when we're all here and not before. If I'm not back in an hour..."

He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before he turned around and walked out of the door before it closed behind him.

"So," Amy asked, smiling at the people around her after a moment's silence made it clear that nobody else was going to start speaking right now, "how did you all meet the Doctor?"

* * *

Walking through the corridors of the vast ship that his enemies had chosen as a home base, the Doctor wasn't sure if he should be disturbed or impressed. Under other circumstances, the fusion of technologies that had obviously been used to construct this facility would have been wonderful- two different races coming together to explore the possibilities available to them via cooperation that they could never have explored alone-, but considering who was working together and what they were trying to accomplish, his interest in that was virtually non-existent.

Besides, he had a more immediate task to occupy his attention right now; he had to find his immediate predecessor.

God... he'd known that the other him had problems since his self-analysis during his captivity on the _Valiant_, but the thought that he could go this far...

The sudden sensation of his ninth incarnation's mind a short distance away brought that train of thought to a halt, as the Doctor turned around to hurry down the corridor that led in the direction of his target. As he opened the door at the other end, he smiled in satisfaction at the sight of his ninth self, alone in a room as he grimly studied a computer screen before him with various other screens active around him, including one that looked like a communication terminal.

The younger Doctor might be working with their enemies to achieve the same goal, but the Doctor's guess had been correct; he evidently didn't get along with them well enough to spend too much time in the same room as them.

"I'm not quite-" the Ninth Doctor began as he turned around to look at the new arrival, only for his eyes to widen as he registered who was standing in his door. "_You_?"

"Yep," the Doctor replied, staring back at his past self with a grim smile. "Funny thing about cells; you should have remembered that we _always _find a way out of them."

"They're here, aren't they?" the Ninth Doctor asked.

"Of course they are," the Doctor said, reaching out to close the door behind him as he continued to stare at his other self, knowing who the man he'd been was referring to without the need for further clarification. "Did you think they wouldn't work out how to follow us?"

"The thought came to mind," the Ninth Doctor replied, as he stood up from his seat and walked over to stand in front of the Doctor. "I mean, Klein knew what to do when she took my TARDIS, and-"

"But you didn't mention it to them," the Doctor interjected, still staring at his past self. "The Valeyard not thinking of it I can understand- he always dismisses everything we do simply because he considers it a sign of how pathetic we are-, but why didn't you?"

"I've had other things on my mind-" the Ninth Doctor began.

"Don't give me that; I've _been _you, remember?" the Doctor said, glaring at the man in the leather jacket, the simple attire as much of an attempt to distance himself from his past as his recent actions. "You always tried to deny that you recognised your mistakes even after people drew them to your attention, and there's only one reason you wouldn't mention something like that if you thought this plan had a shot at succeeding; you just didn't really think that they could get here in time, did you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" the Ninth Doctor asked, his lack of denial all that the Doctor needed to hear.

For one of the few times in his life, he didn't bother reflecting on the lack of purpose served by using violence to solve his problems; he just drew back his fist and punched, the unexpected nature of the attack sending his past self staggering back into the nearby desk more than the force of the blow.

"You _underestimated _them," the Doctor said, ignoring the shock of what he'd done- he'd argued with himself in the past, but it had never degenerated to the point where he'd wanted to do _that _to himself- as he glared at his previous incarnation, a bruise forming on the Ninth Doctor's face as he returned his future self's glare. "We have counted on them, time and time again, and you didn't _believe_-"

"_Belief_ isn't going to save Gallifrey," the Ninth Doctor replied scathingly, rubbing his sore jaw as he stared back at his older self. "It's not pretty, and if there was another group to work with I'd be looking for them, but this is the only chance we've got-"

"To do what; _help _the Time Lords do everything we were trying to _stop_?" the Doctor spat. "We were _outraged _when we discovered that validium weapon they planted during the War, and now you're going to let them destroy two planets to save _Skaro_?"

"We have to save Gallifrey; I can worry about the Skaro thing later-" the Ninth Doctor began.

"No you _can't_!" the Doctor yelled, staring in frustration at his other self; he'd known that he was damaged, but he'd never expected himself to be this deluded. "We're talking about _Skaro _here;

"I can work out a way to avoid having to bring it back-!" the Ninth Doctor began.

"Don't even _try _and claim you can do that!" the Doctor interjected, glaring at his younger self in exasperation. "We're talking about a group of geniuses here; don't you think one of them would have disposed of Davros if there was a way to do this without him, or that Davros wouldn't have tried to kill them if he could work out the same? They _need _Davros's technology and Rassilon and Omega's genius to pull this off; the Valeyard brought them together, but they wouldn't stay together unless there was _no _other way to get what they want without the other one getting what _they _wanted! You _can't _work with these _maniacs_-!"

"But I have to try," the Ninth Doctor said, looking at his future self, his assertiveness replaced by an uncertain defensiveness. "If it's the only way to save them..."

He sighed for a moment, apparently lost for words to describe the hope that had surged through him after learning about the plan- a hope that the Doctor himself had briefly entertained before he reminded himself of the consequences of something like that arranged by his enemies-, before he looked firmly at the Doctor once again. "If I can just get Gallifrey back, I can serve as a moral-"

"You're _deluding _yourself!" the Doctor yelled, glaring in exasperation at his predecessor; how could he ever have been so stupidly desperate as to even _consider _this plan? "They'll never listen to _anything _you have to say if it doesn't obviously make them stronger; too many Time Lords would just blindly listen to Rassilon and Omega _because _they're Rassilon and Omega, we don't have the-!"

"_I have to TRY_!" the Ninth Doctor yelled, suddenly grabbing his future self by the coat and slamming him against the wall in a fit of rage. "I failed Gallifrey once, I _can't _fail it again-"

"The only person who ever failed Gallifrey is Rassilon and everyone who thought that following him was a _good _idea!" the Doctor retorted indignantly. "We did everything we could to stop them, but we have to accept that there are things we _can't _do, and you can't _do _this; you're the _Doctor_-!"

"_What does that MEAN any more_?" the Ninth Doctor replied, pain and rage dominating his face as he yelled at his other self, even as a sudden loss of tension suggested that he'd wanted to see this for years. "We failed to defeat the Daleks when we had the chance, we failed to save Gallifrey, we keep on losing companions, we've lost our original home, we've lost all of our _family_... and for what? To save the universe that made us do all that? I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE ANY MORE!"

For a moment the two Doctors simply stared at each other in silence, no words passing between them as the Ninth Doctor trembled with grief and rage under the silent stare of his future self while the other Doctor remembered the feelings that had prompted such an outbreak.

_I don't want to be alone any more_...

That was what it came down to, in the end; in this life he was always aware of his solitude.

It had almost been easier when he'd been left without his memory after Gallifrey's destruction; during the century he'd spent waiting for Fitz, he'd grown used to the silence of his head, and even after he'd learned what he really was he'd been comfortable simply returning to life in the TARDIS, but with the restoration of his memory after the defeat of the Vore, coupled with his regeneration so shortly after the fact...

He'd essentially learned what he was missing and lost the century or so of psychological and physiological stability he'd acquired since he'd actually lost it; looking at his past self now, the Doctor was almost amazed that he hadn't been more unstable than he was.

Even if he had recovered somewhat with Rose to give him something to fight for, that didn't change the fact that he had experienced so much hardship at this point of his life...

"I know how you feel," he said simply, allowing the masks that he'd grown so used to wearing to slip as he looked at his other self, remembering the pain he'd never been able to express to anyone. "I thought that way myself once... thought that there was no way anyone else could understand what I went through... thought that there was nothing left for me now but an old ship that sometimes seems to be on the verge of falling apart and a universe that regards me as everything from a legend to a nightmare depending on their prespective..."

He sighed slightly as he looked at the other man, before his face softened with sympathy as he stared at the other Doctor. "But there's something I remembered that you've forgotten."

"What's that?" the Ninth Doctor asked.

"I'm _not _alone," the Doctor replied, a soft smile on his face as he looked at the Ninth Doctor. "As an old friend once told me... I have the largest family in the whole universe, with friends spreading out across the whole of time and space, reaching out from a battered old blue box to create familial bonds wherever I go and with whoever I meet, regardless of factors such as age, origin, background, or even species."

He relaxed his grip as he spoke, but left his hands on the other Doctor's shoulders, giving him a brief affectionate squeeze before he returned to his looser, more relaxed grip. "It's not always perfect, and there are things that they can't give me, but what family is perfect? What matters is that they're there for me, and they accept me and my faults, just as I accept them and their faults; complete acceptance isn't necessary so long as they're willing to _try _and understand us."

"But they can't... they don't _know_," the Ninth Doctor said, looking sadly back at the Doctor, his initial rage forgotten now that he'd actually voiced it. "There's so much they can't understand..."

"And that's always the way of it with families, really," the Doctor replied, remembering some of his more awkward meetings with Martha's family, to say nothing of a few of the dinners he'd had to attend with Jackie after his regeneration made him more open to the idea (Honestly, why did he seem to be finding companions with families more often these days?). "They exasperate you, frustrate you, push you to the point where you wish you didn't have to deal with them... and then they show you that they care by doing something for you that you can understand and appreciate, telling you that they _can _get you even if you they don't always show it."

He smiled solemnly at his other self. "Are you really going to risk the family you found out here, the family that accepted and understood you as who and what you were without asking for more from you than what you were willing to be, the family that never wanted you to be anything more than the Doctor who travels through time and space and sees the universe... for the family that always did nothing but drop you when you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do with your life?"

The Ninth Doctor stared silently back at the other Doctor, the faintest tears in his eyes as he reflected on what had happened in the past and what he could and couldn't do to take action against it, but then he smiled and nodded firmly.

"We're the Doctor," he said at last, his voice hardening with every word he spoke. "Whatever else we do... we don't let others do what they think is 'right' if it means killing innocent people."

"Right," the Doctor said, removing his hands from the Ninth Doctor's shoulders as he smiled at the other man. "Well then; shall we go?"

There was still a lot to be done until their enemies were defeated, but they were united in their purpose once again.

Against four of their deadliest individual enemies, that would _have _to be enough...


	40. Confronting Klein

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Another emotionally complicated chapter, but I feel that the final result works

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Having settled into a larger lab a shorter distance down the hall- this one consisting only of a larger computer and a large meeting table-, the two oldest Doctors only had a relatively short amount of time to wait until their other selves and assorted companions had come to them. As the other Doctors took up their seats around the table, the Doctor wasn't blind to the glares that the other eight of him were shooting at his immediate predecessor, but he was surprised to see the uncertain expressions on the faces of his non-Time Lord companions (Although he was pleased to note that Ianto Jones, while still clearly shaken, didn't seem to be confused any more; evidently the others had managed to bring him up to date with what was going on).

"We haven't... filled them in on everything yet," the Fifth Doctor said, looking briefly at the oldest two Doctors, answering the question they hadn't asked yet; knowledge of what would happen to them hadn't been shared with everyone yet. "I thought- _we _thought- that it would be better heard coming from someone who knows what we're talking about first-hand."

"Quite," the Doctor said, nodding in acknowledgement at his past self's decision- it could be seen by some as 'passing the buck', but he had to admit that the central idea was sensible enough- before he looked around at the rest of the people in the room while placing a reassuring hand on his previous incarnation's shoulder. "Firstly, don't blame him for what he did, given that we are talking about the dimmest of us- which admittedly still makes him smarter than most-; no real innovation-"

"Oi!" the Ninth Doctor said, looking over at his future self with a glare that was mitigated by the slight grin underneath.

"You called yourself Doctor _Table _at one point, Doctor; I don't think-" the Doctor began, enjoying the brief return to form as each incarnation nitpicked at the parts of themselves that they didn't entirely like.

"I did?" the Ninth Doctor said, looking at his future self in confusion.

"Oh, wait a minute, just you and Rose... you haven't done that yet," the Doctor said, shaking his head awkwardly before he continued. "The point is, he screwed up, but he did it because he's had a lot to process and little time to do it, made even worse by the fact that he regenerated shortly after he remembered everything that he'd done- the Victorian gent over there suffered from amnesia for some time after everything happened before he got back to normal-; he basically had all the crap from our previous life dumped on him all at once on top of the usual post-regenerative trauma attack."

"He gets off on a temporary insanity plea?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking sceptically at the Ninth Doctor.

"I'm _tolerated_ because I wasn't thinking clearly for various reasons; I'm _not _expecting automatic forgiveness," the Ninth Doctor corrected, looking grimly at his previous self. "And considering that you're the one who thought about killing himself when you were _stable_, you're not one to talk about _me _making mistakes because I'd been through a lot."

The Sixth Doctor didn't reply to that statement, and none of the other Doctors were inclined to press the matter, even if the earlier ones were obviously curious; it was clear that this wasn't the time or the place to talk about something like that.

"So... who are we dealing with here?" the Brigadier asked, seizing the opportunity to address the problem right in front of them.

"We already told you who-" the Third Doctor began.

"Yes, and from what we've heard, I find it unlikely that three such unstable egomaniacs- to say nothing of the Daleks- managed to come together on their own, even if they could find some common cause to work towards, which means that someone else actually brought them together to do whatever they're trying to do," the Brigadier said, looking grimly at the Doctors. "So, now that we're all here, can you tell us who brought these men together, and why they did it?"

Looking around at his other selves, the Doctor took a deep breath and nodded in understanding at their own accepting stares.

Even those of them who didn't know anything about the Valeyard beyond what their later selves had informed him of knew that they would have to rely on their companions if they were going to accomplish their goal, and also knew enough to know that their friends would never abandon them.

They might be facing an unprecedentedly dangerous enemy, but they were accompanied by their most loyal friends; if they couldn't trust them now, they couldn't trust anyone.

"He calls himself the Valeyard," the Doctor said, before taking a deep breath as he gave himself a last moment to collect himself before revealing the final secret. "But... he was originally known as the Doctor."

For a moment, the other companions simply stared at the Doctor in silence, until Jo finally spoke.

"You mean... he was posing as you?" she asked uncertainly.

"No, Jo," the Third Doctor said, indicating the later five Doctors. "According to myselves here, this 'Valeyard' _is _me-"

"Hold on; you mean that _you're _doing this? Claire said, looking at the Sixth Doctor in shock (The Doctor noted that Klein had a self-satisfied smirk on her face at this news, but he quickly resolved to ignore that; he'd get back to her when the time was right and everyone was aware of what they needed to know). "But why-?"

"He is _not _'me' in the sense that _we _are me," the Sixth Doctor replied grimly.

"To put it simply, the Valeyard is the manifestation of the darkest sides of our nature, created at some point in our future; we don't know _how _he was created, so don't ask," the Eighth Doctor explained, taking up the explanation. "Somehow, a corrupt High Council were able to bring him into existence- from my perspective, a couple of lives ago- to serve as the prosecutor in a sham trial intended to conceal their own shortcomings after we discovered evidence of their mistakes- a future Earth relocated and decimated by a fireball that nearly wiped out all life on the surface just to prevent people learning that certain secrets had been stolen from the Matrix-; we only just defeated him that time, and we were certain that he had died in our next encounter when I was the little fellow with the umbrella..."

"Hold on; you... killed your evil future self?" Barbara asked, looking incredulously at the Eighth Doctor, her confusion clear on her face. "Isn't that a bit... well, I mean...?"

"He wasn't our future self in the sense that we'll become him- from what we gathered he's just the physical manifestation of our darker side rather than actually being _us_-, and he actually died when his TARDIS exploded and he was caught in the blast, but that's another story for another time," the Eighth Doctor clarified.

"OK, so he's not you in the sense that _you're _you; if you saw him die- and from what Jack's said you don't make that kind of mistake-, how is he still walking around?" Owen asked.

"Unfortunately, that's where I come in," the Doctor explained. "During a recent crisis involving... the creation of a paradox machine, the machine's destruction didn't completely erase everything that its creator had done; part of his plans included... well, they involved drawing something from a parallel universe across the inter-dimensional void- a non-space where nothing exists except what no longer existed- and into this reality, with the result that, even with that event erased from both universes, there was now a tear in the Void that was sufficient for the Valeyard, now trapped there after we erased his present, to escape and get back into the real universe."

"And... that allowed him to possess this 'Nivet' person you mentioned?" the Second Doctor asked.

"Nivet?" Serena asked, looking over at the Doctors. "You never actually specified; who _is _Nivet?"

"He was a technician we met back on Gallifrey; he... well, Compassion took him with her after she decided to make her own way, reasoning that he could deal with any problems she might encounter in the absence of the Eye of Harmony," the Ninth Doctor said, looking awkwardly at where the two Compassions were still standing silently in one corner; they had been physically reactivated, but whatever their enemies had done to them had still knocked their mental processors out for the count for the moment. "As for how the Valeyard did it... Well, we'd been linked to Compassion's telepathic circuits, which meant that _he _was linked to them as well; in a discorporated state with access to potentially the entire universe, it wouldn't be that hard for him to find her present condition and hi-jack Nivet's body through the telepathic circuits, given his own youth and inexperience."

"So... if he has his own body, what exactly is he trying to do?" Ian asked. "I could understand revenge- it'd be excessive, but I could understand it-, but this is just too elaborate..."

"He wants to save our home planet," Susan said, her expression clearly showing her grief at the thought of the situation she had just described.

"Save your home planet?" Barbara repeated, looking at Susan and the First Doctor in shock. "But what-"

"It's been destroyed," the Ninth Doctor said grimly, attracting various shocked gasps from the companions who hadn't been aware of this news already.

"Oh no..." Jo said, staring at the Doctors in shock, before her gaze settled on the Third Doctor. "I... Doctor, I'm _sorry_..."

"Thank you, Jo," the Third Doctor said, nodding in grateful understanding at her before turning to address his other companions. "Regardless of the... scale of the tragedy, how that happened is not what matters at this time; the only thing that matters is that, according to what the Valeyard told us- and we have no reason to doubt him-, Rassilon and Omega have allied with Davros, the creator of the Daleks, in order to save both Gallifrey and Skaro- the Daleks' own home planet- from destruction, by replacing them with two planets from the present."

"Hold on; they're going to _what_?" Gwen asked, looking at the Third Doctor in shock.

"They're... look, I _think _I've got what you just said, but I'd like to be sure, OK?" Fitz said, looking at the Doctors incredulously. "You mean... they're going to just take two planets from _now _and put them where those two planets were _just _before they got blown up... and then dump Gallifrey and Skaro back here?"

"Exactly," the Doctor said.

"But... doesn't that solve everything?" Donna asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "I mean, Skaro, OK, I get why you wouldn't want _that _place to come back, but-"

"Except that they'd be devoting too much power to actually accessing the planets through the dimensional ripple that was caused by Gallifrey's destruction in the first place to be able to specifically choose which planets will be replacing them," the Ninth Doctor said. "I tried to do the math on that myself, but I just couldn't make it work; there's no way to choose specific planets to be sacrificed at this end if they're going to have enough processing power to save the planets at the other end of the rift."

"So... they'll save your planet and this 'Skaro' place... and just sacrifice two random worlds in the process?" Claire asked, a gradually dawning expression of horror on her face as she processed the scale of the implied crime. "Oh my God..."

"But why did they bring you all here then?" Martha asked, looking in confusion at the Doctor. "I mean, wouldn't they want to wait until they'd actually _won _before showing you what they'd done?"

"Unfortunately for them, they needed us to actually complete the plan," the Fifth Doctor explained.

"They did?" Amy asked in confusion.

"They intend to use our TARDISes to provide the necessary processing power to 'do the math' to actually recover the necessary planets for the plan to succeed, and the anti-matter mining we discovered on Zeta Minor helps provide them with the power they need; what they've gained from the Rift will be useful, but they need all available power to get the job done," the Fourth Doctor continued. "With Compassion's future self posing as Ianto Jones to act as an inside man to gain access to the Cardiff Rift for additional power, as well as providing them with the chance to steal our TARDISes and capture us, it's now just a matter of time..."

"I don't see what you're all complaining about," Klein said, speaking for the first time as she looked at the Doctors with a grim, cold smile. "After all, you'd all do the same thing if you could."

The rest of the room fell silent at this statement for a moment before they turned to look at Klein, their expressions varying from shock to rage at what she had just said.

"What?" the Brigadier said at last, his voice a low, dangerous tone that even the Doctors couldn't recall him using before; in their experience, the Brigadier tended to shout when he got angry and wasn't afraid to ensure that others knew when they had evoked his displeasure.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't be as obvious about it, but you can't say you all wouldn't do this if you could get away with it," Klein said, looking over at the Seventh Doctor with a brief, cold stare before she took in the rest of the people sitting around her, a smug expression on her face that suggested that she couldn't believe she was the only person saying what she was currently saying. "After all, you changed history to get rid of my world just because you didn't like it; considering that we're talking about your planet-"

"_WE DON'T _DO _THAT, KLEIN_!" the Ninth Doctor yelled before any of the others could do anything, walking over and grabbing the former Nazi by her jacket as he hauled her off her feet and slammed her into the wall behind her with such force that the other Doctors winced even as their companions stared at the Ninth Doctor in shock. "WE DON'T CHANGE HISTORY-!"

"YOU DESTROYED MY WORLD!" Klein yelled back, forcing the Ninth Doctor's hands away from her shoulders as she glared at him, rage and pain in her voice as she glared at him. "Do you honestly expect me to believe-?"

"What did we do while you travelled with me?" the Seventh Doctor asked, cutting Klein's rant short.

"What?" Klein asked, turning to look at him in confusion at the interruption.

"What did we do when you travelled with me?" the Doctor repeated.

"We... went to other planets, we visited those mercury swamps, you tried to help those 'Krill' things-" Klein said, clearly lost at the point that the Doctor was trying to make.

"And in all that time, did I ever go _anywhere _with the goal of changing history?" the Seventh Doctor asked, staring firmly at her.

"No..." Klein said, her manner briefly faltering before she glared at him again. "But that was just because-!"

"Because I _don't _do that," the Seventh Doctor said, his tone still firm as he stared at her, his harsh stare refusing to allow the possibility of an argument. "I changed history to remove your world because it was _not meant to be_, Klein; the reason I do not go back and alter the outcome of other historical events that I might disapprove of is because it is just too dangerous to do so."

"Didn't that mess with the Reapers teach you anything?" the Ninth Doctor asked, still glaring at Klein. "It's like the little tramp said when we all met in the church; they just didn't bother coming for you because you'd done so much damage to Time that they _couldn't _have stopped it on their own."

"You destroyed _my world_-!" Klein spat in outrage.

"We've all done things that we wished we could undo after the fact, Klein," the Doctor said, looking solemnly at her. "I was present when Pompeii burned..."

"I have to live with the knowledge that a part of me was Jack the Ripper," the Seventh Doctor put in.

"He'll be unable to do anything but watch as the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve plays out before him," the Second Doctor said, indicating the First with a brief wave of his hand, ignoring the shocked look on his previous self's face as he continued to speak. "Personally, when looking back on my shortcomings in this body, I'll always remember how I wasn't able to save the Selachian homeworld from being destroyed by a bunch of trigger-happy soldiers, so bitter about what had happened in recent years that they couldn't see another way..."

"You'll come to think of the day when you couldn't save London from the Xhinn," the Fourth Doctor suddenly said, looking solemnly at the Third Doctor for a moment before sighing himself. "And as for me..."

He looked grimly at his hands, a contemplative expression on his face at the memory that now filled his mind. "I'll always remember the day that I had the chance to stop my greatest enemies from ever existing... when my own people had _asked _me to avert their creation at the very beginning... and didn't take it."

"You didn't?" Ian asked, looking at the Fourth Doctor in shock. "But... I mean, you'd been _asked_-"

"And how would that make me any better than them, Ian?" the Fourth Doctor asked, looking grimly back at his first human companion before he looked over at Klein. "I learned long ago, Klein, that just because I have the ability to change history doesn't mean that I should; any attempts to rewrite the past could result in something even worse coming about. I will interfere to put history on the right track if someone else changes it- and I won't deny that we've occasionally taken action to undo temporally dangerous timelines if the futures being created will have long-term damage to the web of time-, but we will _not _constantly tamper with the timeline to achieve the results we want."

"Quite apart from anything else," the Second Doctor said, smiling slightly at her, "can you imagine how exhausting that would be? Going back and forth, making sure that history is unfolding exactly the way _we _want it to, constantly stepping in when something happened that didn't fit the vision of the world we were trying to create, making everyone so dependent on us stepping in to handle _everything _that came up..."

He sighed in an exaggerated manner before he looked back at Klein. "Well, with one planet completely dependent on us to the point that we can't visit anywhere else in case they need us for something while we're 'away', it would be a frustrating dull way to live, wouldn't it?"

Klein opened her mouth as though to protest, but then closed her mouth, a shaken and contemplative expression on her face as she took in what the younger Doctor had just said.

Only the Seventh Doctor and his successors knew what was going through Klein's mind; the Second Doctor, without knowing it, had just described the exact situation that Klein had found herself in when she had changed history to try and recreate her world; even after she'd helped the Nazis win the war, she'd kept on going back and forward in time, getting advance knowledge of alien invasions and going back to warn the Nazis about them so that they were ready, never able to take the time to actually enjoy her trips in the TARDIS as she was so focused on her primary goal to the exclusion of all else.

"Well... so you're less professional about your use of time travel-" she began.

"Less professional?" Jo repeated, looking incredulously at Klein. "He travels through time because he enjoys the chance to see what's out there and help when he can; the fact that he doesn't just travel around for the sole purpose of fighting evil and changing history is-!"

"The point, Klein, is that the Doctor would give _anything _to change those events, but knows that he cannot," the Brigadier said, looking solemnly at the Nazi scientist; he had a feeling that whatever Jo was about to say would just inspire an elaborate shouting match that none of them had time to deal with right now. "He will do what he can to protect us, but if it comes to a choice between changing history and saving lives, I have come to recognise that the Doctor will not change what has come before even if it means that he must allow others to die; he was present at the death of Rasputin- whom I am assured was a far more benevolent individual than history records-, and did nothing despite his thoughts on the man's murder, and he and I once met your 'Fuhrer' in 1942, but neither of us did a _thing _to try and end Hitler's actions at that time because we could not predict the consequences."

"But..." Klein said, looking around the room only to find herself met with nothing but cold stares as she tried to find the right words.

"Trust me, I asked him that question when we in Pompeii, Lizzie," Donna said, looking coldly at Klein. "I wanted to save the city, but all he'd do is insist that he couldn't do anything... and, in the end, I got the point that he was making; sometimes, doing something can be more dangerous than doing nothing, because we can't be sure that what happened before wasn't better than what would have happened if something else had happened instead."

"It's like Alistair said to me," the Eighth Doctor said, smiling sadly at Klein even as she looked uncomfortably at Donna, clearly thinking about what the other woman had said. "Life is only what it is because it isn't forever."

"I said that?" the Brigadier said, looking at the Eighth Doctor in surprise.

"You _will _say it, eleven years in your future," the Eighth Doctor clarified, smiling briefly at his old friend before returning his attention to Klein. "The point is, Klein, that while we would _like _to change those parts of history that we don't like if we could, the fact that we can't just reminds us that, even as time travellers, we have to cherish each moment that comes to us; if we could change the moments that we don't like, we'd never be able to appreciate the moments that we do."

"And where's the point in living if you can't make mistakes?" Jack asked, looking solemnly at Klein. "We can alter history so that we all live perfect lives, never making a single error in judgement or having a single regret... but how would we be able to enjoy the really good moments that come about when they're all we'd have ever known?"

"Even when those bad moments include the destruction of everything you know?" Klein asked, looking over at the Doctors and their companions.

"Even then, Klein," the Doctor said, speaking for all of his other selves. "We did everything we could to save Gallifrey... but, having failed, we won't go back and try to undo its loss just because we don't like how things turned out. There are things we will always wish that we could do, and there will always be people or places that we would give anything to save... but, if we could save anyone and do anything, nothing that we had _now _would be worth anything."

For a moment, there was silence as everyone around the room looked at Klein, waiting for her reaction of what they had told her, until she looked at the Seventh Doctor.

"If my world had been the right history..." she began, looking uncertainly at the Doctor she had spent so much time travelling with and hating, a contemplative expression on her face, "would you have left it alone?"

"Yes," the Seventh Doctor confirmed. "I would have objected to what you had done to maintain it after you stole the TARDIS while I was helping the Krill, but if Germany had won the Second World War on their own, I would have done nothing to help the British change that outcome."

After a long moment of staring at the other man, Klein sighed, an expression of desolation on her face that the Doctors could never remember her showing before.

"You're telling the truth..." she said, her voice low as though she wished that she could deny what she had just said even as she knew that she couldn't.

"I always was," the Seventh Doctor said, staring sadly back at Klein. "Believe me... if there had been another way, I would have taken it-"

"Save your apologies, Doctor," Klein said, looking firmly back at him for a moment before she turned to look at the other Doctors and her fellow companions, her usual cold stare on her face once again. "Let's deal with this problem, shall we?"

"Of course," the Seventh Doctor said, trying not to look at his future three selves as they each tried not to consider the implications of what they'd just done.

Erasing Klein from history had been hard enough when she was unrepentant about what she had done and considered her erasure the only chance for her history to be restored; how were they were going to do it when she actually _regretted _what she had done...?

"So," the Brigadier said, turning to look at the Ninth Doctor, bringing the later Doctors' thoughts back to the threat in front of them, "now that we've got that out of the way, what can you tell us about what kind of resources we'll be up against when we confront our enemies?"

* * *

AN 2: Hope that meets with everyone's approval; coming up next time, the Doctors engage in a confrontation with their greatest enemies, and face an even greater challenge...


	41. The Dark Quartet and the Ten Doctors

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

As they stood in front of the control room that would lead to their enemies- based on both the directions their foes had provided for the Ninth Doctor and the sheer size of the doors before them-, the Doctors exchanged a final glance at each other before they turned to look at their companions.

"Well, we're here," the Ninth Doctor said, looking grimly at everyone around them as he indicated the door. "Behind this thing is the greater alliance of evil we've ever seen in over a thousand years of travelling through time and space; we're dealing with a quartet of psychopaths with a ridiculously ambitious plan and power and resources beyond anything we've had to face on our own."

"If you'd prefer not to come," the Fifth Doctor said, speaking for all of his other selves as he addressed their friends, "we will completely understand; our enemies brought you here, but this isn't your fight-"

"It became our fight the moment we stepped through those doors, Spaceman," Donna said, glaring at the younger Doctor before he could even complete his sentence with the kind of stare that would have left even the more confident Doctors uncertain about their position. "Maybe it's bigger than the usual stuff we run into with you, but we're here now; we're _not _backing out!"

"I… second… that," Compassion said, looking over at the Doctor with a slightly sloppy stare; she still wasn't back to her usual peak after whatever the Valeyard had done to shut her down- the Eighth Doctor had also expressed concern about how she'd adapt to this kind of temporal paradox, given that she was linked to all ten of him to various degrees even if her link to him was strongest-, but she'd regained enough of herself to walk and talk, and had unequivocally refused to remain behind even before the Doctors explained their plan to her.

"We didn't exactly ask to be here, but when has that stopped us?" Ian asked, smiling slightly at the First Doctor. "If it's important enough for all of you to be here, it's important enough to make it worth our while to help you; we are _going _to stop this, here and now."

"We are _all _here for you, Doctor," the Brigadier said, looking firmly at the ten Time Lords standing before them. "After what you have done for Earth over the centuries, it would be selfish at best to abandon you to face something like this."

Looking around at the resolute expressions on the faces of their various assembled companions- even Serena, Amy and Claire were as committed to the current task as the rest despite the relative brevity of their time with him, although Klein still seemed to be slightly shaken at their last 'chat' even if she was clearly committed to staying there-, the Doctor smiled.

This was why he'd come to appreciate humans so much; they might be flawed at times, and as a group they could make stupid decisions, but, when push came to shove, one-on-one, they could still surprise him, and the best of them were often worth more than any number of Time Lords that he could mention or call upon.

"Just… I know that it's exceptional circumstances, but do we have to use these?" Barbara asked, indicating the Dalek weapons they'd recovered from a locker on their way.

"I'm far from happy about this either, Barbara, but we don't exactly have a choice right now," the Fifth Doctor said, studying the weapon he held with an obviously distasteful expression; the last time he'd held something like that had been when he'd been trying to kill Davros, and he'd never been able to go through with it in the end. "The Daleks aren't going to particularly care about the temporal paradox they'll cause if they try to kill any of us right now, so we have to operate from a position of strength from the beginning if we're going to make any kind of impression on them that won't involve them just shooting us on sight."

"Just remember; don't shoot unless you're sure you have to," the Seventh Doctor added, looking over at the others. "What we're about to do will be dangerous enough as it is; we can't afford to provoke the Daleks and tip our hand too quickly."

"What are you talking about; this-" John Hart began, only to stop as Jack directed a cold stare in his direction.

"_Don't _make me regret letting you come along," he said, looking firmly at the other agent. "You're on the Doctor's team now, which means you follow _his _rules; clear?"

"Crystal," John replied with a slightly anxious nod.

The Doctor hadn't really registered the other agent that much- he wondered if Jack had asked the man to keep quiet to avoid drawing attention to himself, even if the memories that the Doctor was remembering from the perspective of his first two selves was enough to give him a disturbing picture of the man's personality-, but he was slightly ashamed to admit that he actually felt slightly better seeing him standing there with a weapon.

He respected all of his companions for their willingness and ability to recognise that killing, while the expedient way of dealing with a problem, blurred the line between them and what they had to fight in a manner that none of them could ever be comfortable with, but in a situation like this, facing four of his most dangerous enemies and his most consistent adversaries all at once, he was almost grateful for the fact that he had at least two people who would be willing to kill regardless of what he might want them to do.

"Let us proceed," Leela said, her expression grim as she looked at the Doctor.

"I second that," Gwen added, cocking her own gun and nodding at the Time Lord.

With their companions and allies resolved to continue, the Doctor turned and opened the doors before them with a quick flick of the sonic screwdriver- clearly they weren't exactly unexpected or unwanted-, revealing a vast room centred around a half-globe in the ceiling filled with golden Rift energy, a metal pillar extending from the centre of the globe to the floor. Various computer panels were scattered around the room, their controls reflecting a twisted amalgamation of Dalek and Time Lord technology, assorted Daleks at a few control panels while Rassilon and Omega were visible at two consoles on either side of the pillar connecting the floor to the globe. Davros and the Valeyard stood off to the side on an elevated platform that provided a clear view of the room, the Valeyard in a chair that put the Doctors in mind of a throne rather than any kind of practical command position while Davros 'sat' off to the side in his usual life support equipment.

"ALERT!" one Dalek said, turning towards the door, only to be halted when Claire fired her gun at the nearest Dalek, her eyes wide with panic.

"Hold it!" the Fourth Doctor said, as the group raised their weapons to aim at the Daleks that were already moving in to surround them.

"I freely acknowledge that you possess the numerical advantage, but I would ask you all to consider the implications of shooting us all dead coupled with the fact that we may very well manage to cause some damage to this equipment surrounding us before you can stop us," the Second Doctor said, waving his gun around slightly apprehensively as he took in their surroundings. "Does anyone wish to go first?"

"No need for that, Doctor," the Valeyard said, his voice frustratingly casual as he took in the assorted Doctors and their companions, sitting nonchalantly back in his chair. "It's good to see you all."

"You're not surprised to see them, then?" the Ninth Doctor asked.

"You had your moments, but I think what you'll do at Satellite Five shows that you'd still never have the nerve to do what needs to be done; I just felt like giving you a chance to show you what you can be if you really wanted to become it, no matter how pointless it was," the Valeyard said, waving a dismissive hand at the Doctor in leather before he looked at the oldest Doctor present. "You know, I never actually got the chance to ask; how does it feel to know that you created this mess?"

"If this is your chance to go on about how you're only doing what we'd do if we 'had the courage'-" the Doctor began.

"I was actually talking about the fact that my presence here is only possible because you sent Rose back to her world," the Valeyard said, indicating the blonde in question with a casual wave. "The rift she left in the void-"

"Was a completely unanticipated side-effect of what I'm sure was a difficult time for all concerned parties; Rose Tyler is no more responsible for what you're doing right now than we are," the Sixth Doctor said, glaring at his former prosecutor; the younger Doctors might not fully understand what had happened in their future, but they knew enough to keep Rose from finding out more than she should. "We may have created you, but we will _never _be you; the fact that you're even trying this proves that."

"Uh… it does?" Barbara asked, looking at the Sixth Doctor in confusion.

"Considering that he's trying to kill us when he used to _be _us, he'd have to be confident that anything that he does to us won't have any effect on the uses that become him," the Second Doctor said, smiling over at the teacher who had taught him so much without knowing it.

"So… you're saying that he's _not _you?" Claire asked, looking uncertainly between the Valeyard and the Second Doctor. "I'm a bit lost here…"

"Oh, I _was _them, Miss Aldwych; they're just not guaranteed to become _me _ever since I came here," the Valeyard said, shrugging as he looked at her. "After all, would I have ever bothered coming back to confront them if I didn't believe I could win?"

"It's a time-travel thing; trust me, it's easier not to think about it," Jack said, looking sympathetically over at Claire even as he kept his weapon trained on the nearest Dalek.

"But you haven't won yet, have you?" the Seventh Doctor asked, glaring coldly at the Valeyard. "Even when you had virtually every advantage, you still lost-"

"Only because you were lucky, Doctor; don't try and pretend that it was ever anything more than that," the Valeyard interrupted, shooting a harsh glare at his killer. "If it hadn't been for your bomb-happy friend, I would have had you long before you could work out any way of stopping me-"

"Does any of this even _matter_?" Serena asked, looking in exasperation at the Valeyard. "So you're a projection of a defunct future timeline who resents being cut out of existence; why don't you just get over yourself and get out the universe?"

"On the contrary, _Lady _Serenadellatrova," Rassilon said, stepping away from his console to look at her with a cold stare. "That man has proven himself to be the most loyal Time Lord-"

"'Loyal' only because he's doing exactly what you _want _him to do," the Eighth Doctor practically spat, glaring at the first Time Lord with a disdain that shocked his younger selves. "It's just like it was with the Divergents, isn't it; if the universe doesn't do exactly what _you _want it to do, rig the competition and make sure you stay on top regardless of who else suffers, is that it?"

"You should be _begging _for the honour of helping us, Doctor," Rassilon said, glaring at the man he'd once tried to turn into his assassin. "You have rejected your duty as a Time Lord-"

"Exactly!" the Eighth Doctor said, all but yelling at Rassilon as he glared at the man history recorded as the first Time Lord, stepping forward to stand in front of his other selves as he addressed his foe. "I am a _Time Lord_! Repeat that title to yourself; we are _**Time**__ Lords_! If it is a choice between our duty to our home planet and our duty to time, by the definition of our title my duty to Time _must _come first, and this _completely _violates that duty!"

"Just the same as ever, I perceive, Doctor," Rassilon said, looking coldly at the Eighth Doctor. "You never understood your duty to Gallifrey-"

"And you never understood how some things are meant to happen," the Eighth Doctor replied, silently supported by his other selves as he glared at his foe. "You may have created your web of time, but that was only to preserve Gallifrey rather than to preserve history itself; time can be rewritten, I won't deny that, but there are some lines that _cannot _be crossed without our civilisation becoming everything we should be acting against!"

"Even when faced with your creator, you remain a hypocrite, Doctor," Davros said, smirking as he looked at the Time Lord, his gaze flicking between the Fifth and Tenth Doctors. "Look at yourself; you have never been able to bring yourself to destroy me when my creations are perfectly willing to do so to you, and yet you come before us in the company of killers-"

"Oh God, you're not going to try _that_, are you?" the Doctor said, rolling his eyes as he looked at Davros with a scathing glare, the Brigadier's last words in a world that never was once again fresh in his mind. "The Master tried to pull it a couple of years back- not exactly a pleasant experience, I'll tell you _that _for nothing-, but the Brigadier reminded me that I don't _do _that; they're here with me because they want to _stop _you, not because they're going to _kill _you."

"Not that we'd be adverse to that if it became necessary," Klein said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Davros (The Doctor only didn't bother correcting her because this wasn't the time to show a divided front; he did _not _condone what Klein was implying…).

"But the _point_," the Eighth Doctor said, understanding what his other self was trying to make clear to their enemies as he resumed his role in their debate, "is that, even if we are _willing _to go as far as you imply, we will only do it if we have absolutely _no _other choice; you destroyed your own people's leaders because they _might_ not have agreed with your plans, continued to treat people like idiots and tools when they asked for your help, and even had to brainwash your own Daleks just to ensure that they wouldn't turn on you later, and you _still _think you're in the right?"

"I have to admit, that fits the definition of insanity to me, Davros," the Fourth Doctor said, looking coldly at the man he'd met on Skaro so long ago. "Delusional narcissism, to be precise; projecting your own failures by attributing them to others rather than accepting them yourself, and then trying to do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."

"You seek to stand in judgement of _me_, Doctor?" Davros said, looking coldly at the Doctors before his gaze focused on the Doctor's eighth self. "The man who murdered millions-"

"Because I _had _to," the Seventh Doctor interrupted, his voice grim and his eyes narrowed as he stared at Davros, the younger Doctor speaking in defence of his next incarnation. "I have _never _claimed to be a saint, Davros... but even in this body, I have _only _gone _that _far when I had _no _other choice. Have I murdered? Killed? Destroyed? We have all found ourselves in a position where we had to go that far... but we have _never _done that as the _first _option."

"But _you_?" the Eighth Doctor said, stepping forward slightly to stare coldly at the Daleks' creator. "You created the most ruthless creatures the universe would ever know... any further amendments you made to them were intended solely to turn them into better killers... you tried to force me into a position where I would have no _choice _but to kill you... and you called your creations a work of _good_."

"_Good_?" Ian said, looking incredulously over at Davros. "What could _possibly _be _good _about those... _things_?"

"When the Daleks are in control, they will create peace-" Davros began.

"You're trying to justify creating monsters by arguing that nobody would be at war after the Daleks have conquered everything else?" Barbara said, looking incredulously at Davros. "Don't you know _anything _about history? People aren't just going to give up because they're up against bad odds!"

"From what the Doctor told me, you've lived through a whole war, and you really think that everyone else is just going to lie down and quit once you've stomped all over them?" Fitz asked, looking sceptically at Davros. "You're a complete idiot, you know that? I don't know much about psychology and even _I _think that's a stupid theory!"

"You are hardly in a position to judge my actions-" Davros began, his voice growing louder as his temper grew.

"Don't you EVER judge us by YOUR standards!" the Doctor said, glaring at Davros; right now, it was easier to focus on the thing that had created the Daleks than think too much about the allies he'd gathered. "We ALWAYS care about those who die to help me. Every death that was the result of my failure... every life lost in the wars I've witnessed... every sacrifice made to help me end the conflict... I _remember_ them, and I will _always _wish that I could have done more to protect them."

"But you?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking mockingly at Davros. "You _murdered_ the woman you loved and couldn't even admit how you felt to yourself... you created the race that destroyed your own... and then, even after all that, every time you have had the opportunity to improve... every time someone gave you a chance to do something other than kill... you _always _chose the way that would ensure that people _suffered_ for what you perceived as 'the best'."

"You have done the same-" Davros began.

"_No_," Martha said, her voice cold as she stared at the man before her. "The Doctor only kills when he has _no _choice; _you _would kill just because you _can_."

"Because you can…" the Doctor repeated, a thoughtful expression on his face that shifted into sudden enlightenment as he looked at the Valeyard with a new sense of disgust and pity on his face. "That's it, isn't it? All of this… is just to show that you can do it."

"Hold on; he's doing all this just… _because_?" Tosh said, looking at the Doctor in shock before she looked back at the Valeyard. "But _why_-?"

"Because it is the _only way_-!" the Valeyard began.

"To prove you're better than them by doing what they failed to do?" Owen said, staring grimly at the Doctor's darker future. "You're really a sad, desperate idiot, aren't you?"

"He has done the impossible already; he saved _me_-!" Omega began, glaring at the Doctors behind his mask.

"He saved you by using Compassion's chameleon circuit and various other salvaged components to create an external projection from the anti-matter universe; you're no more real than the nurse was Queen Xanxia, and that's not going to last forever," the Fourth Doctor said, tapping his head slightly as the Valeyard looked at him in shock; the Valeyard might be from a possible alternate future, but it was still relatively easy for the Doctors to make a low-level psychic link with the Valeyard to determine some of his more prominent thoughts. "That body's going to run out of power eventually- you can't maintain a portal into the anti-matter universe forever without causing _some _damage to this side-, and you'll just be left stuck where you were before."

"They _will _release me-!" Omega protested.

"They can't," the Fifth Doctor said, shaking his head as he looked sympathetically at Omega; the other three may have their own long-term agenda, but all Omega had wanted as long as the Doctors knew him was to be free, and he couldn't even have that. "That projection's more advanced than Xanxia's, but there's no way to make it permanent; you'll always be trapped in the anti-matter universe no matter what anyone does over here, any attempts to establish a permanent physical presence on this side nothing but temporary regardless of the methods used to do so…"

"_Enough_," Rassilon said, glaring at the Fifth Doctor. "This discussion is pointless, Doctor; regardless of your freedom, with the additional computational power provided by your time capsules, we require only a few more minutes to prepare our equipment-"

"A few _minutes_?" Rose said, looking at the first Time Lord in shock. "But-"

"You were never going to give me a chance to find another way, were you?" the Ninth Doctor asked, staring in frustration at their enemies. "You just wanted to make them hate me for giving in…"

"It would have been interesting," the Valeyard said in a dismissive manner. "But it doesn't really matter in the end; the equipment just needs a few more minutes to process the rift energy we're taking in, and then the timescoop will be ready to activate."

"And what exactly are you going to do after this is done, anyway?" the Brigadier asked, looking sceptically between Davros and the three twisted Time Lords. "As I understand it, Gallifrey was engaged in a war with the Daleks when the Doctor was forced to destroy you both; have you actually considered-?"

"Oh, that's already agreed on," the Valeyard said, smiling mockingly at the Doctors. "Once both planets are restored- and the necessary adjustments have been made to compensate for whatever our actions do to history-, with me as the impartial observer to come up with acceptable terms, Rassilon and Davros have already drawn up a truce."

"A _truce_?!" Susan repeated, looking at the twisted version of her grandfather in shock.

"With the _Daleks_?" Romana said, not even bothering to conceal her revulsion at that idea. "Are you _insane_?"

"It is a perfectly reasonable balance," Rassilon said, looking firmly at Romana. "The Daleks will leave Gallifrey alone, and in return, we shall ensure that the Daleks' actions do nothing to jeopardise the Web of Time to a serious extent-"

"In other words, once Gallifrey's safe, the rest of the universe can be left out to dry while the Daleks conquer it so long as time isn't too badly damaged?" Serena said, looking at Rassilon in disgust. "That's… that's…"

"You're selling out the universe so that _you _aren't hurt; there isn't a _word _for how repugnant that is!" Claire said, glaring at Rassilon. "You're a sick, twisted _bastard_, you know that?"

"I seek nothing more than what the Doctor _should _seek," Rassilon said, looking dismissively at Claire. "After all, he drove us to this-"

"What, now you're going to blame _us _for provoking the Daleks?" the Ninth Doctor asked indignantly. "In case you're all forgetting, it was _you lot _that sent us there to stop them evolving in the first place; they'd have left time travel alone if we hadn't provoked them by _showing _them what they could do with it!"

It was in that moment that the Doctor knew how to regard his previous self.

The Ninth Doctor had been flawed, and he had made mistakes, but, when push came to shove and he had to make a choice, he was the man who would always do what he could to prevent the death of innocents.

He may have fallen when faced with evil at times, but he would _never _back down if there was anything he could do that wouldn't result in more people dying, acknowledging his responsibility while refusing to allow it to put him down.

He'd made a mistake in his relationship with Rose, but they'd all made some mistakes in their friendships in the course of their lives; that was no reason to condemn the Doctor, after all.

"Quite," the Second Doctor said, looking coldly at Rassilon and the Valeyard. "I confess that I remain ignorant of the fine details of our future with them, but certainly the Daleks I have encountered only utilised time travel as a means of conquest and assault under specific circumstances; you cannot _create _a threat and then claim that they would have attacked you anyway when there is no way to _know _for certain!"

"_You _are responsible for this war, Doctor-!" Davros began, pointing angrily at the Fourth Doctor.

"I did what I thought was right at the time, Davros," the Fourth Doctor retorted, looking solemnly back at the last surviving Kaled. "Maybe I made the wrong choice when we met, but I made the choice that I could live with… just as I am certain that I will continue to do so in the future."

"We can't expect to be perfect, and we've never professed to be anything like that," the Seventh continued, nodding solemnly at his past self before he took up the response. "We are the Doctor, and that means living with what we can't do-"

"Because you're _weak_-!" the Valeyard tried to interject.

"Because sometimes, the strongest thing to do is nothing," Barbara said, looking solemnly at the Valeyard. "If you _are _the Doctor, you'll remember that I asked him why we couldn't change history, and his answer was that it makes it too complicated if we just change everything; some catastrophes have to happen if anyone is going to learn anything, and changing everything freely just gives us all more power than anyone should have a right to…"

"Always the same old sheep, aren't you, Miss Wright?" the Valeyard said, looking mockingly at her. "I never understood why I didn't just kick you out-"

"Because, my boy, we do not dismiss others as failures the first time they let you down and let that define them," the First Doctor said, looking indignantly at the Valeyard. "Life is about accepting that people are _people_; they can make mistakes, but you must give them a chance to show their worth."

"Big words from the man who ran from his family-" the Valeyard spat.

"I left them because I could not be what they wanted me to be; I did not abandon them because I gave up on them, I left because I could not be what was expected of me," the First Doctor said, still staring at the Valeyard with the cold intensity that was only made more intense by his physical age. "You have truly forgotten _everything _about us, haven't you, mmm?"

"Says the man who continues to reject his people for these primitive apes," the Valeyard said, looking over at the companions even as they stared defiantly back at him. "You make yourself so weak, catering to the whims of creatures who will never understand you, and deceive yourself into thinking you have found a family while secretly enjoying the chance to lord it over them all-"

"They are our _friends_, Boneyard," the Sixth Doctor said coldly. "And if you're going to quote that statistic about how often they're in danger at me, I would like to remind you that there have been several of them and only one of me; proportionately, I think you'll find that I tend to put myself at risk for them more often than they endanger themselves for me."

"Does that sound like the attitude of someone who'd take people along to show off?" the Eighth Doctor asked, smiling mockingly at their other self.

"I have never felt like I was there for the Doctor to show off to," Leela said, looking at the Valeyard with a slight smile; the Valeyard's eyes seemed to widen slightly as he looked at her, but the expression vanished so quickly that nobody could be sure. "I have grown in my time with the Doctor, but I always realised that what he did for me were things that I would have wanted to do for myself if I had known about them."

"Exactly," Jo said, staring firmly at the Valeyard. "The Doctor doesn't bring us along just to tell him how brilliant he is; he brings us along because he wants to show us what's out there and help us become… _more _than what we were."

"And you believe that?" the Valeyard asked.

"We _know _that, Valeyard," the Brigadier said, glaring at the other man. "And if there was anything of the Doctor left in you, you would know that too."

"Maybe they're just a bunch of stupid apes at times," the Ninth Doctor said, a slight smile on his face as he looked at his dark future self, "but they're apes who proved themselves time and time again, and _never _let me give up-"

"And that attitude led to you destroying Gallifrey because you preferred to protect one pitiful planet to trusting your own people," the Valeyard said, smirking as he looked over at the eldest two Doctors. "Don't you remember what Marnal told you, Doctor? The second rule of the Time Lords; 'Do nothing, and all will be well'-"

"I never believed that even when I was _him_; do you honestly think we'll accept that _now_?" the Doctor asked, waving an indignant hand at the First Doctor. "If all you can do is sprout that, it's clear that you've forgotten more about being the Doctor than we've ever learned about you!"

"You know, when you get down to it, you're really kind of pathetic, you know?" Martha said, looking at the Valeyard with a grin, the fear in her eyes the only sign of just how unnerved she was at the idea of facing the personified evil of the man she loved. "You started out with all of the Doctor's imagination and drive, and all you can think of doing with that potential is trying to kill him and do what he didn't do?"

"And what about you?" the Valeyard asked, smirking back at her. "Jumping into a relationship with a man you met in an alternate timeline just to get over me-"

"Pardon?" Donna said, looking at the Valeyard incredulously. "Sorry, sunshine, but you've _really _got your facts crossed; Martha's been dating the Doctor since that whole mess with the Master."

The surprise that crossed the Valeyard's face at that news was all that the Doctor needed to realise something.

"You knew that our timeline had diverged from yours, but you didn't know that it had diverged _that _far, did you?" the Doctor said, smiling at the Valeyard in realisation. "Rose coming back created an opportunity, but you never stopped to explore what _else _it created…"

"Were you even aware that _I _am here?" Leela asked, stepping forward to look firmly at the Valeyard.

"Of course I was; I just-" the Valeyard began.

"You didn't think it was relevant, did you?" Gwen asked, smirking at the Valeyard. "You saw Leela, and you tried to cover up your shock, but you didn't have a _clue _what she was doing here…"

"You're up the creek and off the map when you thought you knew it all, eh?" John said, joining Gwen in grinning at the Valeyard. "You're _really _in trouble now…"

"Because I made one mistake?" the Valeyard said, glaring at the Doctor and his companions, his original confidence returned. "You may have acted contrary to what I was expecting, but that doesn't matter; I still know _everything _that you will do.

With that said, he glanced over at the Daleks, a firm glare in his eyes. "Give them a few minutes to witness our victory, and then stun everyone else, but eliminate those I instructed; we can contain the others and work on tying up the paradox later."

As the Daleks aimed their weapons, the Doctor swallowed.

This was it.

All or nothing…

"I'm giving you one last chance," the Doctor said, looking at the Valeyard and his assorted allies. "Stop this right now- end this whole insane scheme- and just leave history alone; we can find some way to preserve Gallifrey that _doesn't _involve this-!"

"We are _Time Lords_, Doctor!" Rassilon proclaimed, glaring at the last of his race. "If history must be sacrificed to preserve our race, then so be it; we forged this history, and it is our _right _to rewrite it if we feel it appropriate!"

"You _can't_-!" the Eighth Doctor yelled.

"We _will_," the Valeyard said, grinning at his past self before he turned to address his associates. "Initiate the Time Scoop!"


	42. The Doctors' Tricks

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Hope you like the first stage of the Doctors' plan to stop their enemies' scheme; it's just something that I've always wanted to find some way of doing (Points if anyone can guess the reason why, but it involves a certain quote…)

AN 2: A few spoilers for the Fifth Doctor 'Key 2 Time' audio trilogy, but I hope you like the result

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"You know, it's funny, really," the Doctor said, his initial apparent panic being replaced by a surprising nonchalance as the equipment began to charge up, the ball of vortex energy above their heads glowing ever more brightly as the companions looked at it in slight but obvious apprehension.

"What?" the Valeyard said, turning his attention away from the accumulated energy to look at the Doctor, his initial joy at victory supplanted by confusion at his enemy's attitude shift.

"Oh, nothing much," the Doctor said, grinning at his dark future. "Just amusing to think about, really; all four of you are some of the greatest minds I've ever encountered- you're particularly brilliant, considering where you come from, Valeyard-, and yet, when push comes to shove, you're still _completely_ stupid."

"What are you talking about?" Rassilon asked, the other three leaders of this perverted alliance joining the Valeyard in glaring at the Doctor.

"All ten of me, all of the companions we arrived here with, the six members of Torchwood Three and Captain John Hart as a bonus…" the Doctor said, before he smiled at his enemy in a teasing manner. "But who's missing from this little gathering that _you _invited to this party?"

As the Valeyard took in the group before him, the Doctor smiled as he watched the Valeyard put the pieces together as he realised the anomaly in this encounter.

Every companion that had arrived here with one of the ten Doctors was present- including the six members of Torchwood and a man the Valeyard vaguely recognised as Captain John Hart, based on some vague memories of him studying Torchwood's records during visits at that point in his life-, but one person was still missing… a person whose absence he never would have noticed if the Doctor hadn't brought it to his attention, because she was still technically _here_…

"Where is she?" the Valeyard said, looking more sharply at the Doctors.

"Worked it out then, did you?" the Sixth Doctor said with a smirk. "It always took you a while to put the pieces together…"

"And you still haven't put it _all _together, have you?" the Second Doctor said, grinning mockingly at the Valeyard. "You've _been _us, and you not only failed to notice that she was missing, you also haven't noticed that someone here's been unusually silent?"

For a moment, the Valeyard simply looked silently at the group before him, before his gaze settled on the Third Doctor, the one Doctor to have said nothing during his earlier debate with his past incarnations…

"Oh no…" he said, his eyes widening as he realised the truth.

"Yes," the Third Doctor said, his voice a lighter, feminine tone to the Third Doctor's usual voice, followed by the man in the velvet smoking jacket shaking his head as he transformed before the eyes of all present into a red-haired woman wearing a dark coat.

"The _slave_ bites back," the older Compassion said, glaring scornfully at the dark Doctor who had used her against her allies.

"You didn't seriously think that we'd leave either Compassion lying around while confronting you, did you?" the Eighth Doctor asked, smirking at his future self as the Valeyard stared at them in horror. "We're not _you_, Valeyard; we won't leave someone alone just because it's not convenient to have them around."

"And besides," the Brigadier said, grinning at the dark future version of his friend, "I think we all know that there are certain things that my missing former colleague is just _far _better suited to deal with than the rest of us are."

His eyes widening in rage and a hint of fear that only the Doctors could have seen, the Valeyard turned to look at his equipment, just in time to see the true Third Doctor emerge from behind the main console, grinning at the assembled adversaries around them as he held up a small black box.

"The advantage of not being that concerned about repairing the chameleon circuit, old fellow," the Third Doctor said, tapping the box to indicate a strap that had allowed it to be attached to his wrist before he removed it, "is that it's easier to cannibalise certain parts of it for a cloaking device."

"Particularly when we're working with TARDISes we're not going to be using for long after this, of course," the Seventh Doctor said, smiling over at the Valeyard. "A quick bit of work with the sonic, some working chameleon circuits cannibalised along with parts from the broken ones that are still in reasonably good order, and…"

"Presto," the Fourth Doctor finished for his future self. "The distinguished gentleman from Gallifrey remains off the radar while Miss Compassion provides a useful distraction from his efforts; all rather neat, wouldn't you say?"

"I have to admit, old chap," the Third Doctor said, looking over at his future selves with a slightly pained smile, ignoring the frustrated stares he was attracting from the assembled villains, "as nice as it is to be needed, I'm slightly disappointed that we haven't become better at this than I am."

"Oh, we've picked up some interesting tricks over the years; you're just the one of us with the best knack for it," the Fifth Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at the white-haired man in velvet.

"Quite," the Doctor said, grinning over at the man in the cricket jumper. "You're definitely my favourite, but that man could do things with a cup of coffee and assorted cutlery that the rest of us would need days to think of."

"I _think _that I can-" the Sixth Doctor began.

"Oh, you did, but you were in a situation where you were being reminded of the time he made it; it doesn't count," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly before he looked back at the Valeyard. "Care to give up now, or do we have to demonstrate how you've failed already?"

"What did you do?" Omega asked, looking grimly at the Doctor who had originally defeated him.

"I just reprogrammed the machine to draw on only the photonic energy of the Void energy you've collected already, and then disabled all other possible energy acquisition systems you might attempt to use instead," the Third Doctor said, grinning over at Omega.

"Eh?" Donna said, looking at the Third Doctor in confusion. "Why not just… turn it off?"

"Disabling it would have been simpler, Miss Noble, but that would just mean that it would be easier for our adversaries here to undo what I did," the Third Doctor clarified. "This way is a bit more complicated, but the results are worth the effort; it's much harder for them to reconfigure what I've changed than it would be for them to simply turn everything back on."

"If _you _can do this-!" the Valeyard began.

"You can undo it?" Tosh asked, smiling as she looked at the Valeyard with a surprising amount of confidence for the formerly timid scientist; her relationship with Owen had been good for her in that regard. "It's a good guess, but it's not accurate; I know from experience that it takes a lot more effort to repair something than it does to break it, even when you know exactly what you did to cause the original damage, and I think we can agree that the Doctor wouldn't do something that you could easily undo."

"It's been a while since you were us, Scrapyard; if even _we _can't be sure how we did things when we were him, are you really willing to guess that you know _exactly _what the dandy would have done to the machine?" the Sixth Doctor asked with a satisfied smirk. "I don't know about you, but I think you're about to have a _few _problems."

"Because it's absorbing a different kind of energy to what it was designed to use?" Amy asked.

"Because it's absorbing the _wrong _kind of energy…" Ian said, his eyes widening in thoughtful understanding as he looked over at the First Doctor. "That's why he did it, isn't it? This… timescoop thing… it won't work properly if it's not using the energy from that rift, will it?"

"It will be like adding the wrong kind of petrol to a car, Chatterton; something will happen, but it will not be what was desired," the First Doctor said solemnly.

"It'll never be enough…" Serena said, unable to stop herself from smiling as she looked at the twisted quartet before her. "No matter how much photonic energy you absorb, you will _never _have enough! You can turn the universe dark, and all you'll accomplish is putting the lights out for a few moments; you'll never have enough power to operate the timescoop that way!"

"We still have the anti-matter-!" Omega proclaimed.

"Which will provide a momentary boost; you just don't have the power to do anything more long-term right now," the Fourth Doctor interjected. "The timescoop was never designed to be powered by anti-matter energy; it's fine to provide it with a short-term power boost, but you'll never make it work otherwise."

"What did you do?" Davros asked, glaring over at the Third Doctor. "Tell me _exactly _what you did-!"

"Do you honestly think there's anything that you can do that will make us give in to a demand like that?" Klein asked, glaring pointedly at the Daleks' creator. "We have gone to great lengths to sabotage your equipment; we aren't going to tell you how we did it _that _easily!"

"Oh, perhaps you won't talk at first," the Valeyard said, shrugging slightly as he looked at his tenth incarnation. "You are right that I can't just _kill _you, and even your companions are somewhat 'off-limits', but… well, as the Sou(ou)shi will teach you, you would be surprised what you can live through…"

"You _were_ the Doctor, and you honestly think that torture's going to get you anywhere with us?" Romana said, looking at the Valeyard with a disturbed expression that might have had a trace of pity about it. "You've fallen further than I could have ever imagined…"

"Because I'm willing to do what has to be done?" the Valeyard asked, looking mockingly at Romana.

"Because you actually think that'll get you anywhere," Fitz said, looking scornfully at the Valeyard. "The Doctor's always known when you _shouldn't _do something; you'd break everything apart because you can, wouldn't you?"

"I do what you are all too _afraid _to do-!" the Valeyard began, his voice rising as he looked at his former self's companions.

"In other words, you're the weakest of all of them," Amy said, looking at the Valeyard with a slightly saddened expression. "The Doctor taught me that it's harder not to do something when you have the power to do it than it is to just use that power; you're just doing what the Doctor wouldn't do because you can, and that's that."

"Enough of this pointless _bickering_!" Rassilon said, glaring at the Doctors. "I dislike having to repeat myself, Doctors; tell us what you did to disable the timescoop, and we shall-"

"As we already informed the Valeyard, Rassilon," the Seventh Doctor interjected, "there is _nothing _that you can offer us that would convince us to restore that Timescoop; the universe can cope with being dark for a few minutes if you try to use that thing regardless, but it _cannot _cope with what would happen if your scheme was successful."

"_TELL US WHAT YOU DID_!" Davros practically roared, extending his mechanical hand towards the Third Doctor, only for a well-placed bullet from John Hart to strike the hand in the centre of the palm, leaving the fingers to flop uselessly to the ground.

"_Scatter and fire_!" Jack yelled, the two former Time Agents, Klein, Gwen, and the Brigadier raising their Dalek weapons to fire at the surrounding enemies while K-9 aimed his blaster, leaving the other companions and the various Doctors to retreat behind some of the room's assorted consoles or out into the external corridors and take what potshots they could at the mass of Daleks before them.

"_Turn on the machine_!" the Valeyard yelled over at Omega, glaring in frustration at the chaos that the control room had become as the Daleks tried to find the Doctors without damaging their equipment.

"But it is only-!" Omega began.

"_Make it work_!" the Valeyard yelled scornfully at Omega. "I dragged you out of the anti-matter universe so that you could do this _one task _for me; you will _not _back out because you think it is _impossible_!"

With nothing else to be said to that statement, Omega returned his attention to the machine in front of him, activating controls and flipping switches, desperately trying to restore what had been lost, the dome full of previously-gathered rift energy above them gradually glowing brighter as the Doctors and their companions fought to stay one step ahead of their foes.

* * *

Crouching behind the console where he'd managed to retreat after grabbing the people necessary for this particular gambit to work, the Doctor smiled as a quick glance at the nearest monitor confirmed his assessment of the situation; the machine was taking in power like it had been designed to do, but it was absorbing so much photonic energy that all it was really able to do was enhance the luminosity of the rift energy they'd acquired when they'd stolen the TARDISes, which wasn't much use to any of them apart from creating a good distraction for his allies. With the rest of his other selves, companions, and associated allies keeping the rest of the room occupied, it was time for him to utilise the last-minute plan he'd come up with on the way over and hope that he'd worked everything out correctly.

"Now then," he said, turning his attention back to the three people before him- the darkening skies outside were probably causing a panic, but he'd worry about that once the situation had been dealt with and he knew that was as bad as it would get-, "you're aware of the plan?"

"Yes, but… look, are you _sure _about this?" Romana asked, looking at him in confusion. "I mean, it's not that I doubt you, but I don't _feel _like-"

"Amy and the cricketer will discover it in a few days, and the gentleman here's known about it for three lives; trust me, it's the truth," the Doctor said, looking earnestly between Romana, Amy, and his eighth incarnation; the armed companions could probably hold their own for a while with the element of surprise and the Daleks' limited ability to fight back without damaging anything important, but that wouldn't protect them forever. "I apologise in advance for how it's going to feel, but it's all I can think of right now; the Valeyard would _never _expect me to do this, which means it may be our best chance."

"And… you're sure that I can do this?" Amy asked, looking uncertainly at him. "Mixing segments improperly was what caused this problem…"

"The Key to Time is a picky bit of work, but you'll be sorting that issue out soon enough back home; if there _are _any consequences of doing this, they'll be dealt with when I stop things from your perspective," the Doctor said, smiling encouragingly at her.

"I understand what you're intending to do, but… why are you trusting _me _with this?" the Eighth Doctor asked, looking at his other self in confusion. "I mean, I can understand you wanting to limit what the younger uses know about our futures, but I'm not really-"

"I chose you because you made the greatest sacrifices of us all," the Doctor said, looking solemnly at his past self. "We're all willing to take on responsibility when we have to… but you were the one who took on the most, and proved that you could handle it."

There was nothing that the Eighth Doctor could say in response to a statement like that, so he simply nodded in understanding of his future self's decision.

"All right," the younger Doctor said, nodding grimly at Amy. "Let's do it."

With that instruction, Amy reached into her satchel and pulled out the five previously-collected segments of the Key to Time, quickly putting them together in the appropriate positions before she turned to look at Romana.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"As I'll ever be," Romana said, swallowing slightly as she looked at the younger woman. "Just… don't take any longer than you have to."

Nodding in grim understanding, Amy reached out and placed a hand on Romana's shoulder, waiting for a moment before Roman began to glow, quickly shrinking down into the familiar form of a Key segment, which Amy swiftly slotted into its place in the completed Key before handing it over to the Eighth Doctor.

"You have the coordinates?" the Doctor asked, looking anxiously at his past self; anything to take their minds off the fact that Romana was currently part of the object the younger Doctor was holding in his hands was a good thing, as far as he was concerned.

"Yes," the Eighth Doctor said solemnly.

"Good," the Doctor said, before reaching over to pat his younger self on the shoulder. "Good luck."

With that, the Eighth Doctor stood up, raised the Key above his head, and looked out at the mass of Daleks surrounding them.

"STOP!" he said, looking out at the assembled adversaries with a stern glare.

"What the-?" the Valeyard said, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of the object in the Eighth Doctor's hands, the Daleks halting their own assault as they all turned to look at their enemy's latest counter-attack.

"If you want us, Valeyard," the Eighth Doctor said, staring grimly at his corrupted future, surrounded by the men who had created both sides of the sick war they were trying to avert, "then let's try this on _our _terms."

Before the Valeyard could retaliate, a brilliant glow had emerged from the Key to Time…

* * *

AN 3: Abrupt end, I know, but this felt like a good place to stop without making the chapter too long; let's just say I have some interesting plans coming up…


	43. Confrontations in the Void

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Trickier chapter, but I think it's gone well enough; we're coming up to the climax soon

The Legacy of Gallifrey

When the glow had faded, there was no visible sign of anything different, apart from the Daleks looking at their weapons in a manner that could almost be described as confusion if Daleks had faces that would have permitted such an expression to be revealed in the first place, the sudden lack of gunfire and their continued survival the only clue the Doctors needed to confirm what had happened.

"You shut down the Daleks' weapons?" Ian said, looking at the Eighth Doctor in surprise.

"Among other things; that's just the most obvious example of the Key in action," the Eighth Doctor said with a smile as he indicated his successor. "You have this chap to thank, anyway; I put it all in action, but _he _gave me the idea-"

"What has just happened?" Omega asked, looking at the Doctors in frustration. "Where _are _we?"

"Where else?" the Eighth Doctor replied, before he glanced over at the Valeyard. "We're back where you came from."

"You took us into the _Void_?" the Valeyard said, looking at the Eighth Doctor incredulously as the companions exchanged surprised glances. "But why-?"

"Because _this_ is the only place where we can debate without fear of you attempting anything before we're ready," the Doctor said, looking solemnly at their assorted enemies. "Your weapons are disabled, your ship's systems are immobilised, and you don't have the power to do anything anyway, so take this offer; cease and desist in your efforts _now_, and remain here, or we're going to have to send you all somewhere where you're even _less _likely to escape."

"A place more inescapable than the Void?" Rassilon said, looking mockingly at the Doctor. "You're bluffing!"

"Are we?" the Second Doctor asked, looking at Rassilon with his usual teasing smile before he looked over at the Valeyard with a colder stare. "If you really were us once, you of all people should know, Valeyard, we don't _bluff_ when it comes to something like this."

"You have-!" the Valeyard began.

"_Not_. _Like_. _This_," the Seventh Doctor said, looking coldly at the Valeyard, an intensity behind his stare that the older Doctors present knew barely hinted at the animosity that incarnation felt towards the Valeyard. "As I said, you know us, Valeyard; we'll bluff when we're trying to buy time, but not on _this _scale."

The glare the Valeyard gave the Doctor in response to that statement might have been grim, but it was enough to confirm that he had acknowledged the Doctor's point; the Doctor might bluff when he was stuck for ideas, but the Void was such a serious subject that he wouldn't make idle threats about it.

"Are we expected to believe that you would do this?" the Valeyard asked, even as the slightly accelerated pace of his voice suggested that he already knew that he was on somewhat shaky ground. "You would _not _do something like this; you pride yourselves on giving everyone a _chance_-!"

"Once again, you should know us by now, Valeyard; you're the part of us that resorts to the darker option more quickly, but that just means that we'll try to find another way rather than utilise your plans as a first resort," the Doctor said, still staring grimly at his darker side. "Now then, we'll say this one last time; will you take the deal, or not?"

"We will _not_," Rassilon said, staring firmly at the Doctors, his deeper voice drawing attention away from the Eighth Doctor's brief panic. "We still have our great work to complete-"

"Destroying two planets and condemning the _universe _to the Daleks is your idea of a great work?" Barbara said, glaring at the first Time Lord. "What is _wrong _with you?"

"Gallifrey is the oldest civilisation-!" Rassilon began.

"_Enough_!" Klein said, looking at Rassilon in frustration. "I tried to stop a whole timeline from coming into existence, but all it accomplished in the end was leaving me stuck acting as the 'guardian' of that timeline; I was trying over and over again to keep the world I'd created intact, and in the end it fell apart when I made a few mistakes!"

"Your world fell because of _him_-!" the Valeyard yelled, gesturing over at the Seventh Doctor.

"If it was as strong as I believed it was, it would have managed without my aid," Klein said, a grim expression showing how hard it was for her to make this confession even as it reinforced her willingness to acknowledge what she had once denied. "Your own worlds have fallen, and they were far older than mine; I don't like it, but sometimes… you have to accept when you _can't _do anything."

"Precisely," Serena said, looking coldly at the Valeyard. "We are not Time Lords because we can control time, but because we know when we should do nothing with our power; maybe the Doctor is correct and we are too restrictive in our use of our abilities, but better to be too cautious with such power than be careless and destroy everything."

"And _this _is what our people have become?" Rassilon said, looking scornfully at Serena. "Cowards who hide away-?"

"Sometimes it takes more courage to know you _can't _do something than it does to try and take action because you feel you can," Jack said. "I spent the whole of the twentieth century on Earth, aware of what major events were coming up, but I did _nothing _to change them because I couldn't predict what the consequences would be; you can start out with the best intentions, but that doesn't mean you'll make things better."

"And you don't even _have _that excuse; you're just going to leave everything else out to fend for itself to save your own necks!" Gwen said, glaring disdainfully at the ancient beings before her. "You're going to let a race of monsters back into the universe because you think your survival is worth more than everyone they'll destroy? How does _that _make sense?"

"I _created _the Web of Time-!" Rassilon began.

"So that means we should all accept slavery for your sake?" Owen asked. "You did the job, and that's appreciated- well, I'm sure we'd appreciate it if we understood _what _you actually did-, but you can't hold that over us forever; sometimes, there's nothing you can do but just let natural selection take its course and let things stop."

"Actually, that reminds of something," the Valeyard, smiling mockingly at Owen before he turned to address the Doctors more directly. "Amid everything else happening, you haven't had the chance to learn about my last little secret."

"What?" the Doctor said, looking at his future self in confusion as the Valeyard reached out to flick a switch on a nearby console. The Doctor's question was answered before he had finished it as a panel opened in the roof close by the glowing orb of vortex energy and a figure was lowered from the roof, suspended with spread arms and legs in the middle of an energy circle.

"Oh God…" Martha said, raising her hand to her mouth in horror at the sight of the figure in the middle of the circle.

The blond hair was messy and tangled, and the clothes were stained and worn, but Martha _knew _that woman… the woman she'd only just begun to accept as a daughter before losing her in such a pointless manner…

"_Jenny_?" Donna yelled in horror.

"Who?" the First Doctor asked, looking over at the eldest Doctor for an explanation.

"Long story short?" the Doctor said, smiling weakly over at his eldest self. "She's… well, she's our daughter."

"_What_?" the first nine Doctors and several of their companions said, looking at the oldest Doctor with varying degrees of shock; Susan in particular seemed like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard, while the others seemed to be torn between shock at the idea of the Doctor as a father and confusion regarding the identity of the mother.

"Look, to answer the most obvious question, she was created in a progenation machine being used by a group of soldiers waging war in the far future who shoved my hand into the machine before I knew what was happening… and this isn't relevant right now!" the Doctor said, briefly glaring over at his companions before he turned his attention back to the Valeyard. "What is she _doing _here, anyway? She died; I _saw _it!"

"Oh, she died, yes, but with the Source in close proximity to her at the moment of death, coupled with her still being essentially in the first fifteen hours of a new life?" the Valeyard said, smirking as he looked at the Doctor. "You might be able to threaten your enemies, and I know that you're perfectly willing to sacrifice yourselves, but I know for a fact that your daughter is the one person you can _never _kill; you couldn't kill Miranda in the confrontation with the Council of Eight even when she asked you to, so you'll _never _do anything to-"

"OK, you know what?" Jack said, pulling out his gun and aiming it at the immobilised girl. "I am _sick _of you telling us what we will or won't do."

With those words, Jack pulled the trigger and fired a shot at the circle, striking a small metallic component that appeared to serve as the generator for the rest of the energy-based containment system. As soon as the bullet hit its target, the energy circle vanished and Jenny fell from the ceiling. A number of Daleks automatically aimed their weapons at her before remembering that they were still disabled, giving Leela time to leap out and grab Jenny as she fell, turning to glare at the Valeyard as she cradled the unconscious blonde in her arms.

"You would use the Doctor's _child _against him?" she practically spat at the creature before her. "You are lower than the Tesh who hide behind their fields and taunt us!"

"But-!" the Valeyard said, looking at his lost hostage in shock.

"Something you should have remembered about Jack, Valeyard," the Doctor said with a relieved grin. "He'll never do _exactly _what we want him to do."

"Hey!" Jack said, looking over at the Doctor with a slightly teasing grin.

"Jack, you stripped down when preparing to enter that chamber just because you felt like it even after the Doctor pointed out that you didn't need to," Martha pointed out with a smile.

"ENOUGH!" the Valeyard yelled, pulling a strange, long-barrelled weapon out of his robes- one far too long to have been in anything other than a dimensionally transcendental pocket- and pointing it at the Doctors.

"Oh no…" the Fourth Doctor said, his eyes widening in horror at the sight of the object.

"What?" Fitz asked. "What's that?"

"The De-Mat Gun," the Fourth Doctor said grimly. "Anything it's fired at is erased from history."

"But that requires-!" the Fifth Doctor began.

"The Great Key?" the Valeyard said, looking at him with a smirk. "As you will point out, Doctor, Keys can be copied; it took a while, but I found a way to refine the Gun into this sleeker format without the need for the original key…"

"So that's your grand plan?" Claire asked, looking scornfully at the Valeyard. "Threaten to wipe us all out forever if we don't go along with what you want? You're a goddamn one-trick pony, aren't you; 'do as I say or I'll wipe you out if I don't like you'."

"Oh, not _all _of you, no, but… well, let's just say that things in my timeline after I got involved are complicated enough for me to be reasonably sure erasing anyone I travelled with _then _won't have much effect," the Valeyard said, grinning as he studied his past selves. "Restore the Timescoop, Doctors-"

"Or what?" the Sixth Doctor asked, looking mockingly at the Valeyard despite the weapon in his hands. "You know that even if our history doesn't affect _you_, you can't kill anyone here without putting an even greater strain on history as it exists; you're arrogant, but you can't push reality _that _far."

"Once we have the power we need-!" Rassilon began.

"Which you won't unless they do what you want, and they're not _going _to do that, last time I checked," Claire said with a firm glare.

"And what you're gathering now will never be enough to do it on its own," the Ninth Doctor said, staring coldly at their foes as he indicated a monitor near his earlier hiding place. "I saw those readouts; on top of the vortex energy you'd already taken in before we reprogrammed your equipment, you've already absorbed enough photonic energy to illuminate a galaxy for a _year_, and it will _never _be enough to power the Timescoop on the scale you'd need!"

"We still have the anti-matter, Doctor!" Omega yelled, glaring at the assembled Time Lords. "It will take time, but we _will _acquire the power for this effort to succeed-!"

"What, by releasing it bit by bit?" the Seventh Doctor said scathingly. "No matter how much anti-matter you've stockpiled, that's _never _going to be enough to power a timescoop on the scale required for this to work!"

"It won't?" Jo asked, looking at the Third Doctor in surprise. "I thought that anti-matter was the most powerful source of energy there is?"

"Typically, yes, but by its nature anti-matter releases that energy in a single massive burst of power all at once," the Third Doctor explained. "For this plan to work they would require a continuous stream of anti-matter explosions that they could channel in a manner appropriate for their intended purpose, as there is no way to control the energy release properly with the materials we have on hand right now, and I find it unlikely they have any kind of storage system capable of containing that kind of power on a long-term basis…"

"But _you _can repair the equipment, Doctors," the Valeyard said, glaring at the oldest Doctor present. "We won't _need _the anti-matter once the engines have been programmed back to their original function…"

"You're being a bit repetitive, you know?" Rose said, looking at the Valeyard with a slightly confused smile. "I mean, you've been asking the Doctor to do what you want since we got here, and he keeps saying 'No'; how often does he have to say it before you get it?"

"Besides, do you honestly think you can do _anything _to make us go along with that demand?" the Doctor asked, looking scornfully at the other Time Lords. "We've done _terrible _things to ensure that nobody can abuse time the way you're attempting to do; there is _nothing _you could threaten to do to us that would make us abandon that philosophy now!"

"And what can _you _do against us?" Davros asked, looking mockingly at the Doctors. "I have heard what you accomplished with the Key to Time in the past- we have learned _several _things from the Valeyard-, and we know what it is capable of; the fact that you have not used it in that manner yet confirms that you will _never _have the courage to use the Key as it _could _be used…"

Despite everything, the Doctor smiled.

"And once again, we've got you," he said, smirking at Davros before he turned his attention to directly focus on the Valeyard. "We resort to guns and weapons and an easy method of disarming you, and you think that means we've given up and are violating our principles to do what you'd do…"

"What?" the Valeyard said, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"Once again, you're thinking of us based on what _you _think we'd do and your belief that we're cowards who can't do what 'has' to be done; you just keep on forgetting that we're willing to go further when things are bad enough," the Doctor said with a casual grin under a dark glare. "You're pushing us to the point where we will have no other option but to attempt the riskiest gambit we've ever tried… because nothing else will come close to achieving our current goal."

"What?" Omega said, unintentionally mimicking the Valeyard as he and his allies looked at the Doctor in confusion.

"I brought us to the Void because it created a neutral location where we could discuss things in more detail without putting anything else at risk," the Doctor said, staring solemnly at their assembled enemies before he assumed a hardened glare. "But that doesn't mean that I'm going to let you remain here; I know very well that at least one of you has already escaped from here, and I'm _not _going to re-use an old prison."

He smiled slightly as he picked up the Key to Time, even as the grim expression in his eyes made it clear that what he was about to do was something he wasn't comfortable with. "But there _is _a superior one…"

As soon as the words had passed the Doctor's lips, the world around them glowed as another burst of energy came from the Key, before exceeding once again.

"What just-?" Ian began.

"NO!" a voice proclaimed, the Doctors spinning around to look at the source and finding themselves staring at a man dressed in long black robes standing in the middle of the room. "I will _not _permit this!"

If the Doctor had been the kind of man who cursed, he would have done so at this latest turn of events; the new arrival was the _last _thing they needed…

* * *

AN 2: An abrupt shift, but that's the way things worked out; if all goes according to plan, everything will be tied up and explained in the next chapter…


	44. The Perfect Prison

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

AN: Hope this works; you'd be surprised how tricky it is to write this guy correctly, even without everything else I had planned…

The Legacy of Gallifrey

"Oh, _you're_ here," the Sixth Doctor said, sighing in frustration as he glared at the new arrival, as a cursory inspection by the other Doctors confirmed that they, Susan, Serena, Romana, Rassilon, Omega and the Valeyard were the only people present still moving, their companions, Davros and the Daleks frozen mid-motion. "I'd really hoped that you'd be content to stay behind the scenes after what happened last time you tried to go public."

"Oh, I thought about it," the black-robed figure said, smirking at the multi-coloured Doctor, "but the scale of possibilities ensured that this was an opportunity that I couldn't ignore…"

"Look, if we're going to do this, can we have everyone else here paying attention as well?" Serena asked, indicating the other companions standing around them. "I mean, you can ignore the Daleks, but surely our fellow companions deserve to know what's happening here."

"You would consider them your equals?" the black figure said with a sarcastic smile.

"They have accomplished a great deal over the years; you would do well not to underestimate them," the Eighth Doctor said, looking grimly at the Black Guardian. "Now, _release them_."

"Why not?" the figure said, smiling as he snapped his fingers and the human companions began to move, along with Davros.

"You-" Rassilon began, looking indignantly at the new arrival.

"If you are as confident as you have always claimed to be in your victory, a few extra humans are nothing to be concerned about," the figure said, looking firmly at Rassilon.

"Hold on a minute; how can you do this?" Romana asked, looking pointedly at the black figure. "This is a far more active use of your power than you should be capable of…."

"In the prime universe, yes, but this _isn't _the universe as we know it," the figure said with a smile. "It doesn't give me total freedom to act as I wish, of course, but it does give me a little more… leeway… than usual."

"And your counterpart doesn't object?" the Seventh Doctor asked, attracting further confused stares from his various companions.

"Oh, he would notice if I _did _anything, but if I'm just bringing things to a brief halt while I'm here… particularly when I'm in a 'here' that doesn't technically exist… well, he can't honestly object to that," the black-clad man said with a mocking smile.

"Uh… sorry, I think someone forgot to give me the cast list; who _is _this guy?" Fitz asked, looking over at the Doctors in confusion.

"The Black Guardian," the Fourth Doctor said, looking grimly at his old enemy.

"Ah," Fitz said, the scarf-wearing Doctor's tone of voice having made it clear that this wasn't the time to ask for more detail.

"So you were the 'Dark One' Greel and Chen mentioned in their records at the Zeta Minor facility?" the Fifth Doctor asked, looking curiously at the powerful entity. "I'd assumed that was the Trickster, but he was just your agent, wasn't he?"

"The Pantheon are a… useful tool to further my own agenda in cases where I cannot act myself," the Black Guardian said, smiling mockingly at the Fifth Doctor. "They are typically subtle enough to avoid attracting _too _much attention to my involvement in their activities, particularly when they rely on the choices made by others to actually do anything; the Pantheon merely give them the ability to make changes, but the humans they deal with are still the ones who make the final choice-"

"I'm sorry, but aside from having a stereotypically intimidating name, who _is _this guy?" Donna asked indignantly, looking over at the later Doctors since the Fourth apparently wasn't going to say more than he had already. "Just how tough is he, and what gives him the right to go on about all this crap in the first place?"

"The Black Guardian, Miss Noble," the Seventh Doctor said grimly, "is the personification of chaos for the universe; we've had a few deals with him regarding his attempts to disrupt the universal balance-"

"Hold on; he's the personification of chaos?" Claire repeated, looking at the Seventh Doctor in shock before turning her attention back to the Black Guardian. "As in… are we talking about a _god_ here?"

"That would be an accurate way to think of me, Miss Aldwych," the Black Guardian said, smirking as he looked over at Claire. "And what a delightful bit of chaos _this _could cause-"

"_Don't_," the Eighth Doctor said, glaring at the Black Guardian. "Haven't you done enough to us already? We've lost our entire civilisation because we had to make an impossible choice; this isn't the time for you to be making threats like that when everything's so close to the edge already!"

"And what _you _are about to attempt is not dangerous?" the Black Guardian said, looking over at the Doctors with a satisfied grin. "This is-"

"The last action of a desperate man who knows he's exhausted all safer options," the Doctor retorted, staring solemnly at the powerful entity that had posed such a threat in the past. "The time is now, and we have tried everything we could to convince you to find another way; if you won't listen, we'll have to take _very _drastic measures."

"Like what?" Davros asked mockingly.

"Like this," the Doctor said, looking grimly at his other selves. "Doctors, on my command… _now_!"

With that word, the Doctors all closed their eyes, raised their heads, and suddenly started to glow a brilliant blue, their arms spreading out as the glow enveloped their bodies, all ten Doctors rising into the air as their companions watched.

"What in the world…?" the Brigadier said, staring at his floating friends in amazement.

"The Year that Never Was…" Martha said, her eyes widening in realisation. "Of _course_; the Archangel Network!"

"What?" Jo asked, looking at her in confusion.

"It's… a long story, but in a nutshell, the Doctor ended this timeline where Earth was conquered by… someone… when he found a way to channel the telepathic energy of the human race through himself," Martha explained; she wasn't going to tell everyone about the Master conquering the world, but she had to give them something to think about. "I think that my Doctor just told the others how to do it, and…"

She shrugged. "Well, we're talking about the energy of over five billion people here; even if my Doctor used it in his past, there had to be _some _available for us right now."

Looking back at the villains, Martha was only slightly relieved to see that Rassilon, Omega and Davros appeared to be just as intimidated by this turn of events as the Master had been when it first happened, although the Valeyard's arrogant smirk didn't do much to make her feel better about these events while the Black Guardian appeared to be frustratingly nonchalant about it all, merely standing off to the side and watching events unfold before him.

"You think that _this _scares me?" the Valeyard asked, looking mockingly at the Doctors as they floated before him, even as the other three villains moved a few slight but significant inches back. "All I have to do is…"

His voice trailed off as he looked down at his hands, evidently realising that what he had been attempting to do wasn't working. "What… why… why can't I-"

"Why can't you access the Network?" the Doctor asked, smirking mockingly at his dark future. "You're forgetting one thing; they're not just praying to the _name_."

"What?" the Valeyard said.

"Didn't this happen to you?" Martha asked, smirking at the Valeyard as she stepped forward to glare at the man in black. "I spent a whole year telling the world about the man who had given so much over the centuries, both in the past and the future, to save our lives without any of us ever knowing that he was there, who loved this planet so much that he kept on coming _here _for people who understood him when he never found them on his own, who chose us over other aliens so many times even if we gave him reason to doubt…"

The smirk faded as she glared at the Valeyard, clearly wanting him to fully understand what she was about to say. "They're praying to everything that the Doctor is, was, and will be to them, Valeyard… and that will _never _be you."

"_I am the Doctor_-!" the Valeyard began.

"You are _not_ the Doctor, my boy," the First Doctor said, staring solemnly at his twisted future. "I, on the other hand, am not only the Doctor, but am also the heir to the House of Lungbarrow."

"I am the man who witnessed the destruction of the Selachian homeworld and accepted that I could do nothing," the Second Doctor continued.

"I am the scientific advisor to UNIT and the conscience of the organisation," the Third Doctor said (He briefly glanced at the Brigadier as he spoke, but the Brigadier smiled in an understanding manner).

"I am the man who held the Key to Time and chose not to use it," the Fourth Doctor proclaimed.

"I was the Supreme Coordinator of the Alliance against Morbius and abandoned that role when I acknowledged that I could do nothing more with it that I wanted to do," the Fifth Doctor put in.

"I am the man who became the first Sandman and saved the Land of Fiction from the Cybermen," the Sixth Doctor said.

"I am Time's Champion, who destroyed the Silurian Earth because I had no other choice, and vanquished the Dark Matrix that your arrogance unleashed," the Seventh Doctor said.

"I was Zagreus, and am now the pilot of the first Type-102 TARDIS," the Eighth Doctor proclaimed grimly.

"I am the Last of the Time Lords," the Ninth Doctor said solemnly.

"_We_ are the _Doctor_," the Doctor said, his gaze fixed on the Valeyard. "And _you _are the Valeyard."

"I _am _the Doctor-!" the Valeyard protested.

"No, you're not," the Fifth Doctor said solemnly. "You _were _us… but, as you've already said, you're not the Doctor any more."

"Which means you're not who they're praying to back on Earth right now," the Doctor said, looking at his future self with a smug grin. "You were us in the past, but right now they're not just praying for a man called 'the Doctor'; they're praying for the man who's been willing to give up everything to save them, the man who's risked his life time and again for a planet that will never know he exists, the man who has stood up for them against monsters who can only see how their species fails rather than how they will always pick themselves up… and that's _not _you."

"You cannot do this-!" the Black Guardian protested.

"I think you'll find that there's not much we _can't_ do right now," the Fourth Doctor said with a smile, holding up a hand towards the Black Guardian in a warning gesture as the Tenth Doctor raised the Key. "We _do _have a lot of power available, in case you're forgetting…"

"NO!" the Valeyard yelled, aiming the De-Mat gun at his enemies. "Do _not _use that weapon-!"

"Or what?" Klein asked, walking forward to glare at the Doctor's twisted future. "You can't use that on half of the people here without it potentially affecting _your _timeline, and the rest of them-"

"Do _not _push me, Elizabeth Klein!" the Valeyard, shifting the gun to aim at her. "I know what you have done; you're not better than me-"

"I made mistakes, but at least _I _made them in ignorance of the consequences to the rest of reality," Klein said, her expression firm as she glared at the Valeyard. "You were once the man who _taught _me those rules, and you'd throw them all aside so easily simply because you now consider them 'irrelevant' so long as you get what you want?"

"I am the Last Time Lord; it is my _right _to rewrite Time!" the Valeyard spat, raising his gun and firing it at the former Nazi scientist.

It was only as Klein stepped to the side that the Valeyard realised what she had done; while the beam from the De-Mat gun still grazed Klein, the full power of the weapon struck the Black Guardian, standing right behind Klein's earlier position, before the Valeyard could release the trigger. As Klein turned to look at her fellow companions with a slight smile before she faded away, the Black Guardian screamed in rage and pain as his form seemed to twist and warp around some central point, the powerful entity reaching out in a desperate apparent appeal for aid before he vanished in a burst of fire.

"Uh… what just happened?" Claire asked. "I mean, you said that weapon-"

"Explanations later; threat _now_!" Jack yelled, indicating the surrounding Daleks.

"Get back to the TARDISes!" the Doctor said, his other selves holding out their hands and concentrating their energy on the Key to Time as it floated up into the air. "We've got this!"

"But-!" Jo began.

"_Go_, Jo!" the Third Doctor yelled. "If this works, we'll only have moments; you _need _to get back to the TARDISes!"

Staring at her Doctor for a moment, Jo swallowed and hurried out of the control room in a mass of other companions, Jack, K9 and the Brigadier bringing up the rear to better defend their fellows as they ran back towards the room where they'd been originally.

"Do you really think that _this _can stop us?" Rassilon asked, glaring at the Doctors even as they floated in the air before them. "We are the _founders _of your civilisation-!"

"A world that had its time," the Fifth Doctor said grimly. "And we aren't going to kill you."

"What?" the Valeyard said, looking at them in confusion.

"Think about it, Valeyard," the Doctor said, looking firmly at his other self. "We're in the Year That Never Was, in the moments before it's destined to end… and you're in a time machine that just lost its source of power. Once the clock runs out…"

He shrugged. "Well, even you can't get out of _this _kind of trap."

"NO!" the Valeyard roared, attempting to charge towards the Doctors, only to be halted as the Sixth Doctor held out his hand and threw the Valeyard back with a powerful telekinetic burst, pinning his foe to the wall. Before their other foes could make a move, the Third, Fourth and Eighth Doctors held out their hands and immobilised Omega, Davros and Rassilon respectively, leaving the other six Doctors to concentrate their efforts on the Key to Time.

"It's over," the Doctor said after a moment's pause, looking over at his enemies in satisfaction. "You're trapped in this ship on the other side of the planet from the Master's equipment and just a minute or so to go until the younger me, Martha and Jack undo this timeline; you won't die, but you're too far from the eye of this storm to get away."

"Stuck for all eternity in the last few seconds of a timeline that doesn't exist," the Seventh Doctor said, looking at the group before him in satisfaction. "The perfect solution, wouldn't you say?"

"You can't _do _this!" Omega yelled in rage. "We _created _you-!"

"You created the society that gave us what we needed to become what I am and will be," the Fourth Doctor said grimly. "That only buys you so much leeway, Omega, and you have _thoroughly_ exhausted it with these actions."

"Goodbye to you all," the Eighth Doctor said, staring scornfully at their four foes. "I'd like to say it's been a pleasure, but… well, we all know that would be a lie."

With those words, the Doctors all redirected their gazes to the Key to Time, concentrated for a moment, and then the Key and the Doctors vanished from the control room, leaving their enemies staring at the location where they had been floating in outrage.

* * *

As the TARDISes flew away from the facility that had been their enemies' headquarters, returning to the true timeline that they had so recently fled from, the last sound they heard was the outraged screams of three Time Lords, the last Kaled, and a large number of Daleks, all of them screaming their rage and defiance to the universe around them before the timeline they were in came to an abrupt end.

* * *

AN 2: A few loose ends, I know, but those will be answered in the next chapter; this just seemed like the best place to stop.


	45. The First of the New

Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own _Doctor Who_

Feedback: Of course

The Legacy of Gallifrey

Looking at their current surroundings, Donna almost couldn't believe it.

After everything they'd been through since that first panicked moment in the TARDIS when the Doctor had revealed that something was attacking his past, they were back on Earth, the Doctors were all right, the TARDISes were all here, Jenny was recuperating in the medical bay of their TARDIS, and history appeared to be back to normal.

Romana had been returned to her original form by Amy as soon as they'd arrived back on Earth, and the other segments were back in Amy's satchel while Romana was resting in the TARDIS; the Doctor in the bad coat had assured everyone that she'd have no memory of her time as the Key segment once she woke up, which included the time period before she'd arrived on Zeta Minor and got caught up in this whole mess…

"So… it's over?" she said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor she couldn't help but consider 'her' Doctor as he stood beside Martha, one arm wrapped around her, looking warmly at the group of Time Lords and humans before them.

"It's over," the Doctor confirmed. "They're all trapped in the last few seconds of the Year That Never Was, unable to die and aware that they're trapped but with no time to do anything about it; even a Time Lord can't get away from that kind of time loop."

"And you're… _all right _with that?" Serena said, looking at the eldest Doctor present in shock. "You've trapped Rassilon and Omega-"

"They gave us a great deal, but we can't allow their pasts to define our current interactions with them," the Eighth Doctor said firmly before his future self could answer the question. "Rassilon and Omega created what we are, but that doesn't give them the right to destroy others to preserve us; we had our time, and their attempts to preserve Gallifrey beyond that would have been wrong even if it wouldn't have resurrected the Daleks into the bargain."

"I know…" Serena said, sighing as she looked up at the ceiling of the Hub. "I just…"

"You wish there'd been another way," Ian finished for her, looking sympathetically at the seemingly younger woman as he walked over to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I know what you mean; I've been in a few situations where I've wished we could have done more since I ended up in the TARDIS… but all we can do is accept what we had to do and focus on the positives."

"Exactly," the Brigadier said, looking solemnly at the group of people around him. "We defeated a plot to restore one of the most ruthless races I have ever encountered in my career at UNIT, as well as trapping one of the most powerful entities I have faced during that same time frame; what we did to them might be… serious… but we have saved countless worlds from the damage that would have resulted if their plans had succeeded. We have faced impossible odds, and we have prevailed; focus on what we have accomplished, rather than what could have happened"

"Quite," the Sixth Doctor said grimly.

"OK, so now that we've got some peace, would you care to explain what just happened back there?" Gwen asked, looking at the Seventh Doctor in confusion. "I thought that weapon the… the _Valeyard_ had erased people from history; if Klein doesn't exist any more, why do we remember her?"

"We're all time-travellers now, Gwen Cooper," the Seventh Doctor explained with a solemn smile. "Add in your team's prolonged contact with the Cardiff Rift and our own time in the TARDIS, and the net result is that we're all relatively immune to these kind of changes in history; where others will forget Klein as she was, we all exist slightly outside of it, and retain some memory of her despite her erasure in that form."

"Talking about that weapon, what about… what it did to the… Black Guardian?" Barbara asked, clearly confused at the memory. "I mean, if he was this 'personification of chaos'…"

"The De-Mat Gun couldn't kill him, of course- it wouldn't be able to erase the Black Guardian from history as he doesn't actually exist _in _history as we understand it-, but it would be able to do enough damage to disrupt his ability to corporeally manifest," the Third Doctor explained, looking over at Barbara with a slight smile.

"Precisely," the Sixth Doctor confirmed. "It's like when I defeated the Toymaker; killing him was impossible, but trapping him was still an option. We might not have erased the Black Guardian, but we did disrupt his physical manifestation on our plane of existence; against something as powerful as he is, that's essentially the only weapon in our arsenal that had any hope of stopping him for good."

"So… he'll come back eventually, but what he did… stopped him appearing here?" Rose asked, looking at the others in confusion. "Like we… cancelled his access pass or something?"

"A crude analogy, but essentially yes," the Fifth Doctor said, nodding in approval at Rose's assessment.

"And you're sure he can't get any of them out of the Year?" Jack asked, looking over at the Doctor.

"Quite," the Doctor confirmed. "The Black Guardian's ability to act is naturally constrained by the same limitations that prevent his counterpart from taking drastic action to aid us; he could get away with using the Trickster and the Pantheon of Dischord as his agents, but the power required for him to rescue our enemies from that last trap would be beyond the Pantheon and nothing that the White Guardian would permit him to use."

"They have to maintain a détente?" the Brigadier asked.

"With the added bonus that over-use of their powers could literally threaten the universe as we know it, yes," the Fourth Doctor confirmed, nodding at his friend. "The Black Guardian might want power, but he's not willing to destroy this universe to get it; he has to settle for manipulating his agents to gain that power."

"So…" Serena said, looking over at the Second Doctor uncertainly. "After all that, we just… go?"

Looking at his second incarnation's one-time companion, the Doctor didn't take long to realise what was concerning her; not only had she violated the Laws of Time by learning about Gallifrey's future, but, regardless of what the circumstances had been, she _had _just acted against Rassilon and Omega themselves…

"Don't worry about it, Serena," he said at last, looking solemnly at her as she looked back at him, offering her what reassurance he could. "You'll be fine."

He just hoped that the certainty in his tone would be enough to conceal the slight lie he was telling her; her life wouldn't be significantly affected by what had happened here, but that was only because she wasn't going to be alive for much longer once she and her Doctor returned to their proper place in time…

Still, he'd had a chance to work with her and Claire again- two young women who could have been very interesting companions if they'd had the chance to join him for more journeys than the single crisis they'd helped him with-, and Klein had been given a chance to redeem her past mistakes; it might not be the cheeriest resolution, but it was the best that the Doctor could do right now.

"The young fellow's right," the First Doctor said, looking around at the group with a slightly saddened smile. "We've accomplished a great deal here, but it's time for us to leave; no point hanging around if we don't have to, after all."

"Quite right," the Third Doctor said, nodding in agreement at his first self before walking over to shake the hand of his oldest present self. "Well, goodbye, old chap; it's been very good to see you."

"Good to see you as well, Doctor," the Brigadier said, walking over to shake the Third Doctor's hand. "It's been… well, it's been a while since I've seen this you."

"It's… it's really you?" Jo said, looking at the Brigadier in surprise as she walked over to stand beside her Doctor.

"We all get older, Miss Grant," the Brigadier said, smiling warmly at the younger woman. "For what it's worth, you'll have a good life when you return to your time."

"Now, Brigadier-" the Third Doctor began.

"I thought that deserved to be said, Doctor," the Brigadier said, looking reassuringly at his friend. "I won't tell her anything more, I assure you; I understand the risks."

"Th… thank you," Jo said, looking uncertainly at the Brigadier before she and the Doctor headed back to her TARDIS.

"Should probably be off ourselves," the Ninth Doctor said, grimly glancing at Rose before he looked over at his future self. "I take it I'm needed there to straighten things out?"

"You are," the Doctor confirmed, before he looked over at his seventh incarnation. "Just let them off back at the church- they can handle things from there- and then get the Chaplin lookalike back to his ship, if he can remember where he parked."

"Excuse me?" the Second Doctor said, looking indignantly over at his future self even as he followed his seventh and ninth selves to their ship.

"You thought it yourself," the Doctor said, smiling at his second self before he looked over at his seventh incarnation. "I'm… sorry about Klein."

"It was going to have to happen anyway," the Seventh Doctor said, looking solemnly at his tenth self as his second and ninth selves entered his TARDIS, temporarily in the shape of an old cabinet. "Just… tell me-"

"The old girl is restored, and you'll meet the new Klein eventually," the Doctor said, predicting what his younger self was about to ask. "Just… don't go looking for her too soon."

"Of course, the Seventh Doctor said, nodding at his future self before he returned to the TARDIS. Serena followed them into the cabinet, but Rose paused in the door to look uncertainly at the Doctor.

"Doctor," Rose said, looking uncertainly at the man in the brown suit, clearly still struggling with the idea that she was looking at her Doctor. "What… I mean, what happened to-?"

"I can't tell you, Rose," the Doctor said, staring solemnly at her. "We had a good time together while it lasted; leave it at that."

Rose simply stared at him in silence before she turned around and walked into the cabinet, closing the door behind her before it vanished.

"She'll forget this soon enough," the Doctor said, looking over at Martha and Jack as they looked uncertainly at him. "The temporally complex nature of the situation she's in at the moment; once history's restored to its original format, the exact details of what happened when it was altered will be forgotten, which includes the time she spent here."

"Does that mean we'll forget too?" Claire asked.

"Well, I'll forget some of the fine details, of course- no point in me being too aware of my future, after all-, but as long as you're with me, your memories of it will only be blurred rather than erased, since none of you learned anything about _your _futures," the Sixth Doctor explained.

"Blurred to ensure that we don't unintentionally mention something that you shouldn't be aware of?" the Brigadier asked.

"Exactly," the Eighth Doctor confirmed, before he looked over at Compassion. "Of course, it might be a bit more difficult for you-"

"I can keep it locked away in a particular portion of my psyche," Compassion confirmed. "Even if you have to link with me again, I can ensure that you don't stumble across anything that might help you remember it."

"Thank you," the Eighth Doctor said, turning back to his future self. "Good luck, Doctor."

"Good luck, Doctor," the Doctor said, looking solemnly back at his past self. "Whatever else you remember, remember this; you will only do what you absolutely _have _to do."

The Eighth Doctor nodded solemnly at his future self before he and Fitz walked back into Compassion, departing as the four remaining younger Doctors headed for their respective TARDISes, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Doctors walking into their ships and departing immediately while the First turned to look at his future self with a brief but proud nod after his companions had entered the ship.

"Well done, my boy," he said solemnly. "You did quite well; I feel that my future is in good hands."

"Even knowing what I did?" the Doctor asked; he wouldn't have asked the rest for fear of seeming petty, but faced with this version of himself, the one still so bound to the rules of the civilisation he'd abandoned….

"You did what had to be done to fulfil the principles that even their writers had forgotten," the First Doctor said, smiling briefly at him in understanding. "We've clearly had an interesting life… but I feel proud to know that I will become you, and feel certain that you will do the right thing whenever the time comes."

"Thanks," the Doctor said, nodding back at his original body before the First Doctor walked into the TARDIS and closed the door, the ship vanishing into the air as the Doctor watched it, the Torchwood team and his companions standing behind him.

"So… those were you?" Donna asked, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"From the old man to big-ears," the Doctor confirmed with a smile. "We've all had our own approach, but we've all been the Doctor nevertheless; tricky when we come together, and always potentially dangerous, but we're so _brilliant_ when we're put on the spot…"

"Do this a lot, then, do you?" Gwen asked curiously.

"Only a few times; bit more if you count it from the perspective of everyone involved, but I just count it based on the latest one present as he's the only one who remembers it afterwards," the Doctor explained. "As I said, important to limit the impact on the timelines; can't have them remembering what I'm going to be, after all."

"By the way," Martha asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor, clearly recalling some of the stories he'd told her in the past, "talking of changing things, if we just trapped Rassilon _now_…"

"Considering that the Valeyard attacked him from a universe of anti-time, it's not that hard to explain," the Doctor said, smiling reassuringly at her. "Anti-time's nature relies on it replaying the same key events over and over again, making time travel impossible in their universe as everything's happening several times over. The Valeyard recovered Rassilon at one repetitive moment of anti-time, and the Time Lords recovered Rassilon from an 'earlier' moment- as much as one can have earlier moments in a universe where time repeats itself-; there's no paradox involved as there is no actual 'present' there for Rassilon to have been taken from, nor is there a 'future' or 'past' for hs removal to affect as we would understand it."

"Ah," Martha said, nodding uncertainly at the Doctor; she _thought _she understood the Doctor's explanation, but considering that anti-time was one of those topics he'd rarely discussed any more than he had to it was hard to be sure…

That thought was quickly dismissed as irrelevant when she looked back at the Doctor and saw him staring grimly out at the room before him, clearly lost in thought about the more negative consequences of what had just taken place.

It might have been justified and necessary, but that didn't mean that the Doctor had found it easy _or _enjoyable.

"So… you OK?" Jack asked, as he, Leela and Donna joined Martha in looking anxiously at the Time Lord, the rest of the Torchwood team simply watching from the side due to their more distant relationship with the Time Lord.

"Why wouldn't I be?" the Doctor asked, looking back at Jack with a forced smile despite his earlier grim thoughts.

"You just saw your past and had to fight the founders of your civilisation and know that there's nothing you can do to change what they're about to go through," Donna said, looking sympathetically at her friend.

"Oh, that," the Doctor said, grinning briefly at her before he sighed grimly. "Well, it's been rough, of course, but I realised something while I was working with me."

"What?" Martha asked.

"That I made the right choice," the Doctor said simply, leaning over to rest against the railing as he looked at the TARDIS, the blue box the last representation of what he had been. "Maybe some of the Time Lords didn't deserve what happened to them when I chose to end the war, and I'll always regret that I wasn't able to save them when I took action, but after seeing what kind of lengths Rassilon and Omega were willing to go to in order to keep it alive…"

"You accept that you had no choice," Leela said, looking reassuringly at her friend.

"Exactly," the Doctor said, shrugging grimly. "If Gallifrey was willing to go that far to survive… it didn't deserve to."

No more words were spoken, but the group standing around the Hub understood what the Doctor meant, and knew that there was nothing they could say that could help their friend cope with what he'd said.

Acknowledging that there was nothing he could have done to save someone might be important, but that didn't mean that he could easily forget what they had been before falling so far…

"Besides," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly as he looked back at his TARDIS, a more positive smile now on his face, "it's not all the same as it was; Jenny's back."

"She'll be all right?" Owen asked, looking curiously at the box holding the girl in question.

"Give her a few days to get over what they did to her, and she'll be fine," the Doctor said, smiling gratefully at Owen.

"It's not exactly the first sign of a reborn civilisation…" Ianto said, looking uncertainly at the Time Lord.

"No," the Doctor said, smiling wistfully as he looked between Martha and the TARDIS. "But in a situation like this, every little helps."

The Doctor might still be the last Time Lord, but with Jenny as a means of continuing his legacy, and Donna and Martha remaining in his company…

The Doctor smiled.

In a small way, their company proved that there was still hope for a brighter future, even amid the darkness and chaos they'd just endured.

He might have destroyed Gallifrey, but moments like this proved to the Doctor that he had made the right choice; humanity's best had pitted themselves against what Gallifrey's greatest had to offer, and they had prevailed through their willingness to work with each other rather than just trying to kill everything against them.

The home that never understood him had been sacrificed, but he'd saved the home that had taken him in and shown him that he wasn't alone.

As the Doctor leaned over to plant a kiss in Martha's hair, he knew that he'd made the right choice.

* * *

AN: Well, there you have it; the final chapter of this story, and I hope you all liked it.

No immediate plans for the future of this series- I've got a lot of other stories on the go at the moment, as well as a new job I've just started recently-, but I hope you enjoyed what I've done so far, and I might do more work in this universe if something comes to mind/anyone makes any particularly promising suggestions…


End file.
